Jirí Šindelár
Deputy Chairman

Did we become hostages to ever-increasing regulation?

According to most common sources, Stockholm syndrome is a type of psychological bond between hostage and their hijacker, when the former develops emotional ties to a person that beats, abuses or generally hurts him or her. Plainly sad, it is about getting pathological “feeling” for your abuser. You might be interested as to how this phenomenon could possibly connect to financial advice and our industry in general? Well, I am afraid I can show you.

With the strong influx of Fintech projects in the financial industry, traditional players are under notable pressure. Most of them have quickly become worried that many of the Fintechs are building their competitive advantage on bypassing (i.e. ignoring) extensive regulation covering financial services. So far, so good. Logical reaction. But I became quickly agitated, when – to my surprise – the traditional players started screaming: “This is unfair, we want the same regulation for Fintechs as we have.” Bah! The same people that I regularly heard talking about obvious over-regulation of financial services are demanding higher regulation for some? This feels truly irrational to me.

It is obvious that we want the same rules to stand for everyone. But should we indirectly appraise our current rules...

The European Federation of Financial Advisers and Financial Intermediaries (FECIF) was chartered in June 1999 for the defence and promotion of the role of financial advisers and intermediaries in Europe.

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 12 June 2018
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