Receiving financial advice from someone not qualified is a massive red flag. Having gone to the effort to train, study and sit exams so that I could provide advice on complex financial products in multiple countries, it is insulting to have people call or post advice when I nor anyone else reading the advice are their client. Its not just socials, it includes any communication tool where attendees can see other attendee names and worse, chat among each other.
So we have to ask, what is the gap in the market that enables unlicensed financial advice to thrive? The reality is that webinar tech, video conferencing, social media and chat sites in their current form are just not a good fit for highly regulated industries. Nor do they traverse intermediated sales channels so that investors can access the expert closest to the point of manufacture. They are built with communication features, not compliance features. So the advisors and product experts who are complying with their licenses are not getting the same benefit out of the technology and the unlicensed capitalize on the gap.
At Forum 360, we believe the only aspect of this problem that needs reform is the technology, not the regulation. We have developed the solution that significantly improves access to expertise for investors within the licensing frameworks set by regulators. Virtual group meetings are intimate and, unlike physical meetings, can traverse multiple brands with the right distribution-tech and regtech incorporated. Think about it, access to an expert via a meeting distributed across multiple jurisdictions and multiple local representatives under multiple brands in compliance with regulations. Now that is an information super highway, a step forward in democratizing access to expertise and closing the gap the unlicensed operate in.
