THE Financial Services Authority (FSA) makes plenty of noise about educating the consumer, one of its statutory duties, but new research shows it is falling down quite badly.

Some of the best-known names in the money game last week tore into the FSA for failing to tell the public about the different kinds of advice now available.

A year ago the FSA allowed banks and insurers to offer advice, with the aim of “empowering” consumers.

But IFA Promotion, sponsored by 31 financial groups, mainly insurers such as Legal & General and Norwich Union, but also including National Savings & Investments and Royal Bank of Scotland, has found little more than a shambles.

It says that 36m adults in Britain — more than eight in ten — admit they still don’t understand the differences between the different types of financial advice. Even more say it is important that an adviser has no commercial ties to product providers, precisely the opposite of what the FSA has decreed.

Of the 6.6m people who saw an adviser in the last 12 months, seven out of ten believe they saw an independent financial adviser (IFA) — highly unlikely, as IFAs account for only a tiny proportion of advisers. So they have been hoodwinked, or at least left in the dark, as to who they were dealing with.

Dan Waters, FSA head of retail policy, promised last June that the watchdog would check up on firms and take action against those that did not make a serious attempt to comply with the rules. A year on, that looks pretty hollow.

If you want independent advice, ask if an adviser is independent and make them put that claim in writing so there is no doubt later.

Chasing exotica

JOHN KELLY, head of client investment at Abbey, warned last week that it may be time to sell shares in companies operating in so-called emerging markets — the jargon phrase for economies that aren’t quite flat on their back, like most of Africa, but also haven’t made it into the exclusive club currently containing the US, Europe and Japan.

The term “emerging” is outmoded, smacking of a colonial attitude towards these little chaps in far-off lands who are doing their best, but are still only at the emerging stage, like a chick very slowly pecking its way out of an egg. But it has been used by the marketing arms of investment companies to give would-be customers an impression of funds that are exotic, slightly racy, quite risky but dripping with potential rewards.

The trouble is, the world has moved on lately. The emerging-market category, which broadly takes in eastern Europe, South America and Asia, has splintered. While the Bric economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — still have plenty of growth in them, it would be fair to say that they have now emerged, along with Australia and Hong Kong. So Bric should really be Bricah and stand on their own.

As Kelly says, “country-specific events will determine the best and worst performers”, and in the case of the bigger economies that performance is becoming self- sustaining.

China is sucking in massive imports of raw materials and spewing them out again as finished goods, making profits big enough to pay for the growth of a middle class which is itself creating employment in that country with huge levels of spending by world standards.

I don’t suggest that investments in these countries will be a smooth ride; as London, Tokyo and New York have shown lately, no stock market is ever trouble-free, and India had a torrid time last week.

But the fact that analysts had to create Bric shows it is time to rethink the emerging category — better named as exotic growth. Take out the bigger fry, which will start slowing down before long, and concentrate on newer, smaller, faster contenders such as Vietnam and South Korea.

Better still, do some homework and compile your own exotic-growth portfolio from the most promising individual country funds. You might find some tempting holiday destinations while you’re at it.

Gizmo theft

HOW many hi-tech gadgets do you keep in your car — and do you take care to put them out of sight? The police say that thieves are now targeting cars rather than houses, because the penalties for being caught are lighter, and cars are worth breaking into because they are packed with increasingly valuable equipment: satnavs, laptops, mobile phones and Ipods.

It has long been sound advice not to leave goods in your car, but many people seem to have lost touch with the value of the stuff left lying around on the seats when they pop out to the newsagents.

Several thousand pounds’ worth has become commonplace, and that’s literally meat and drink to practised thieves once they’ve fenced it.

So it may be boring advice, but you’ve just got to either take this gear with you, or at least sweep it into the boot — always assuming that no villains see you stashing away half the stock of a fair-sized PC World branch.

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