“At our firm, we have the client—and only the client—in mind.” So says a large UK based wealth manager.
There are various statements made by investment product providers. All want to portray that their focus is on you the client. After all, without clients money, these firms will cease to exist. In 1997, Christopher Barts paper entitled, Sex, Lies and Mission statements asked 88 senior managers about their companies mission statements and concluded ‘the vast majority are not worth the paper they are written on” Oh dear.
The question is whether you believe the rhetoric. Some of the largest providers of wealth management in the UK are not independent. They sell their own products. So how do they have the clients in mind exclusively? It doesn’t ring true. In fact, from a regulatory perspective, it’s very hard for consumers to know whether they are actually put first.
If 88 senior managers is a fair representation, I wonder how that would translate to wealth management firms mission statements. Forget the rhetoric, get to the substance.