1. Consumer wealth. The more wealthy a consumer is, the likelihood of seeking advice due to the greater complexity of the financial products.

2. Consumer behavior. Some countries have strong tied-agents force historically. Historical legacy tends to drive consumer behavior.

3. Tax and other benefits. The more complex the tax system is, the greater need to seek financial advice.

4. The greater the government in providing state pensions, the less demand for financial advice. Similarly, the less involve the government is in providing state pensions, the greater the demand to seek advice for private savings.
   

Other observations are:

1. Generally, in most countries consumers tend to decline to take interest in financial services and who spent rather than save. They are also tend to be sold products rather than seeking advice.

2. Apparently there is no country other than UK that has independent financial advisers! (How can this be??)

3. In US, Canada and Australia, many intermediaries call themselves financial planner regardless of the services they provide. In fact, very few actually provide true financial planning.

4. Common problems are churning and bias. There is a high degree of churning problems in North America. Bias in product recommendations are also apparent in many countries due to commission-based.

5. Those selling life products in UK are generally not viewed as professionals.

6. In South Africa, an AFP need to have at least a bachelor degree plus 2 years of experience.

7. It was observed no country has such high level of mis-selling as compared to UK. However, this could be due to not being detected or not acted upon by other regulators.

So far, that is written in the document is almost 100% relevant and applicable in Singapore. It is like reading a book written for Singapore!