Tied financial advisers - old wine in a new bottle?

Singapore

THE blurring of lines in Singapore's financial advisory (FA) sector - that between insurer-backed advisers and independently-owned ones - is set to continue in 2018.

Some quarters in the industry are asking whether insurance players who set up FA arms to sell (to varying extents) their own products is simply a case of putting old wine in a new bottle.

Doubts about the independence of such FAs follow the setting up of FA arms by players such as AIA, Aviva and Manulife. They have generally offered three reasons for doing so:

For some, the growth in Singapore's FA channel heral…