At the risk of sounding facetious, an unbiased financial adviser is somebody who gives independent advice on financial matters. In fact, stating the rather obvious in this way put an important stress on the three vital components of the independent financial adviser's role.
Independent
The independence of the adviser is crucial. When an unbiased financial adviser is consulted, you should know that she or he has no vested interest and can not be influenced in any way by selling an individual company's products. Independence implies that the client can get the adviser to do something completely impartially, entirely in the client's needs, and not because there is a recognised dependent relationship between the adviser and something particular supplier. The importance of this independence can't be stressed enough. The adviser must be licensed by and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority, and independence is a thing that is central to such recognition. The client's faith and rely upon the adviser stems largely from the latter's independence.
Financial
An unbiased financial adviser will need expert professional understanding of a huge selection of financial loans and services. Since it has one of the most highly developed financial services industries in the world, the sheer selection of products on the British market means that knowledge and professionalism must be of the best order.
Due to sheer range of subjects with which an independent financial adviser has to be familiar, there is a correspondingly wide variety of qualifications open to individual advisers. For The Card Association merchant services , the adviser may have professional qualifications awarded by the Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Institute, the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP), the Personal Finance Society (PFS), the Pensions Management Institute (PMI, the Securities and Investment Institute (SII), or others. Most importantly, however, the adviser knows that his is a constantly changing market, with new products and services emerging constantly. He or she can make it her or his business to stay completely up to date with these trends.
Adviser
As an adviser, the 3rd and vital component of the independent financial adviser's role harks back to the first of her or his qualities, independence. The financial advice given should be "best advice" when recommending any service or product. That is to say, the advice should be the advice that is genuinely in the client's best interest. It is as though the adviser had stepped into the client's shoes and was giving advice entirely from the client's perspective. In this manner, the client could be assured that the advice is actually independent, objective and impartial advice that will satisfy the interests that the client himself or herself has identified.
Summary
It is surprising the amount of meaning could be packed in to the three words that describe the role of the independent financial adviser. But as the above brief, thumb-nail sketchy has shown, each of the three words encapsulates a fundamental and vital part of this professional's job. Each word describes the obligations that the adviser has towards all of his clients, in order that the clients, because of their part, can rest absolutely assured that they receive genuinely independent, well-informed and expert financial advice that will aid their own needs.