The entire financial industry, from advisors to consumers, is at a breaking point as regulatory changes and advisors leaving the business make it harder to access and provide advice, says Greg Pollock, president and CEO, Advocis,

Speaking Monday at the Advocis Regulatory Affairs Symposium in Toronto, Pollack said regulatory red tape impedes growth in a number of different industries, including financial services. As it gets more costly to be compliant, he said, it will only get harder for advisors to provide affordable advice to the average Canadian household.

Said Pollock: “Choice and access to financial products, services and advice will diminish if compliance costs are not reined in.”

Affordable advice is more important to Canadian investors then ever, said Pollock, as they continue to struggle to meet their retirement goals due to high household debt levels and public pension and health reforms. Citing a 2012 study by the Montreal-based Centre Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations (CIRANO), Pollock said clients who do work with advisors have 2.7 times more wealth than those who don’t and save for retirement at twice the rate of those without advice.

“Research on the value of advice,” he said, “clearly demonstrates that people are better off financially when they use an advisor.”

Providing that advice is getting tougher for advisors. “Regulatory fatigue permeates every aspect of an advisor’s practice from the increasing costs of running an office, to client interactions to compensation.” This increase in costs can be between six per cent and 10% per year, according to Pollock, making it difficult for advisor to work with middle-income.

The ongoing rise in regulation harder will also make it difficult for the industry to replace retiring advisors, said Pollock, many of whom do not have formal succession plans in place.

“If our industry, in particularly the independent advisory channel, is to evolve,” said Pollock, “then we need to get creative about how we attract new people to the business and how we can help them to succeed.”