Event organized in collaboration with
The landscape for financial advice, in Canada as elsewhere in the world, stands on the brink of a profound transformation.
Due to four distinct, but concomitant trends, the landscape for financial advice in Canada is about to change:
- An uncertain and volatile market (and geopolitical) environment, with hard-to-assess asset prices and values, low expected returns, and unsteady employment circumstances;
- Rapid technological advances, which impact the cost and the ways of providing advice, and transform the client experience;
- The coming of age of new financial products (ETFs, etc.) and investment strategies (passive, smart beta, etc.);
- Keen interest and concerns on the part of regulatory authorities with respect to advisor conduct, resulting in an increasing number of regulatory proposals with the stated aim of enhancing consumer protection and market efficiency.
An aspect, however, seems not have received the requisite attention: the public policy implications of this new landscape inasmuch as it affects the access to financial advice for Canadians of all income and wealth levels.
This conference aimed to provide a neutral forum for an examination of these public policy implications. It featured panelists and speakers from a range of institutions and hopes to provide thorough analysis, food for thought and reflection, not mainly at the technical, but more broadly at the policy-making level. As such, it had to be of interest to prospective attendees from industry, regulators, the academic world and policy-making circles.
This March, senior leaders came together to tackle the public policy implications of this new landscape as it affects the access to financial advice for Canadians of all income and wealth levels.
This two day conference included dinner on March 30th, with a keynote address by T. Timothy Ryan Jr., Chairman, Santander Holdings USA.
This conference was presented in collaboration by three of the leading think thanks in Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute, the School of Public Policy of the University of Calgary, and CIRANO, together with the Toronto Financial Services Alliance.