Sure. But one does wonder. The "reforms" intended to remove...

Sure. But one does wonder. The "reforms" intended to remove conflicts in financial advise have been dragging on for a long time. Depending on what the RC recommends, I wonder if there is a chance that it will become politically untenable for governments not to legislate for a complete separation of the advice function from the product function.

I note @madamswer's comments about the low likelihood of this sort of outcome, which I kind of agree with. But then, a government pandering to a public, that's out for blood, is going to have a hard time ignoring a RC recommendation, extreme as it may be (if that's how the RC pans out).

And I keep thinking about the many years of FOFA's and what not, and I sense that the general public will perceive that many years of reform have delivered SFA (rightly or wrongly), and that the softly-softly approach has run its course.

I wouldn't want to be the politician that says to the public "Just keep putting up with bad/conflicted advice, because the alternative will be too costly".

I'm happy to estimate/price a whole range of business risks. Political/legislative risk - not so much.