I read an old article HERE:

I agree with much of the article regarding many mass-affluent people who are in need for good qualify financial advice and that they are being "missed" by certain financial institutions as they prefer high-networth. However the article gave an impression that the high-networth are well served. Well, perhaps in the US but in Singapore, I have seen many so-called "high-networth" individuals who are being push products down their throats. From what I see, they have the same kind of toxic waste as the ordinary man in the street. Ironically, some high networth have more toxic waste in their portfolios.

Regardless of the networth of a person, to get good quality advice, a few things must happen:

•  Advisers must respect their own occupation. If they think they are just salesman forcing products down people's throats, they have no respect for themselves. They look down on themselves. If advisers look down on themselves, they will drag their clients down together with them. 
•  Advisers must see themselves as professionals. Legally speaking, the Financial Advisers Act creates a new class of advisers who are required to be licensed by the regulator to practice. Thus, from legislation point of view licensed financial advisers are professionals. Some advisers cannot be a professional due to few factors: (1) Lack of knowledge. For some reasons some advisers are not well equip (2) Learn from the wrong mentors - many mentors are from sales background and hence new advisers just learn old trick from the previous generations which does not know anything about professionalism.

• Advisers must see their clients as another liability and not asset. Sounds strange? Yes, it is strange because if the adviser see their clients as another asset, then the adviser's perspective is: What can I gain from this asset? If the adviser sees their client as a liability, the adviser will do all he can to reduce that liability by solving the client's problems. This perspective is important as it influence the type of products which the adviser recommends. For example, there are some investment products which pays extremely low initial commission but has an on-going retainer fee as long as the client stays with him. Yet on the other hand there are investment products which pays a super huge initial commission to the adviser but with little or no on-going retainer. The second kind of product usually has a huge early termination penalty for the client. If an adviser is one who is long-term and has no desire to lock the client with exit fee, he will choose the former type of investment. If the adviser is a short-term person who see his client as his "asset", he will choose the second type of investment for which he gets a huge commission initially with high exit fee. Some investment's exit fee is so high that it is like 100% penalty for a initial stipulated period. 

• Clients must not be passive. They must take some minimal responsibility in their finances. They do not need to be expert and neither do they need to calculate every day or every week. In fact, they probably just need to review their finances once a year or once in two years. Clients must actively want to find out about basic financial planning. Everyone must be equipped with basic planning skill. They should not rely on financial advisers for such basic matters. For example, everyone must learn to keep healthy by having good habits such as eating a balanced diet, bathing everyday and exercise. They should only seek a doctor's advice if there are issues which require medical expert advice. Nobody seek advice with a doctor on how to bathe! Basic financial planning skill that everyone must be familiar are: Cash Flow and Net-worth. For other more advanced concepts which they have no time to read such as Time Valued for Money, Insurance, Investment, Estate Planning, Asset Protection and Taxes, they should consider an expert help.

• Clients must be familiar on how advisers are remunerated. It will be either commissions or advisory fee. Advisers who do not earn anything from all their clients are not doing proper financial planning for themselves and own families. An adviser who cannot understand negative cash flow is detrimental and hence cannot give advice to his client. Thus, no adviser is silly enough not to earn anything. The question is: are the fees transparent? If what the adviser earns is through frequent trading such as selling and buying unit trusts with sales charge, this is not only unethical but illegal. Clients who may require the help of the adviser to give advice in whatever financial matters on a regular basis, should be prepared to pay a retainer. Retainer can be a percentage of the existing asset under management or a fix fee payment regularly. The former is quite popular although the latter is also feasible. If the Client desires just a one-off advice, than a one-off financial planning fee will suffice.

Personally what I have found is that for those who are in their early phase of career, they prefer the retainer idea. Usually it is based on the percentage of the asset under advice. They usually do not prefer the one-off financial planning fee perhaps because their financial situation is not complex enough to justify the perceive initial high planning fee.

On the other hand, those who are rather advanced in their career and has accumulate significant wealth (which means significant problems because they got prospected by so many salesman selling toxic waste) prefer a one-off financial planning fee. Maybe because they are in such a pain having holding so much rubbish that they just need to get rid of it as soon as possible.