Fears of back-door commission - FT.com Investors remain at risk of being sold products they do not need - in spite of an upcoming ban on advisers receiving commission, which is designed to prevent mis-selling. More than two-thirds of financial advisers questioned in new research said they planned to continue taking payments from product providers next year, rather than charging upfront fees to clients. IN Investments Most also believe that the annual fees clients must pay from 2013 will be higher than current "trail commissions": 0.8 per cent of assets under management, rather than 0.6 per cent as now. BDO, the accounting and consulting network that conducted the research, claimed that advisers would simply be charging "commission by another name." Under the rules coming in next year, advisers must agree with clients an upfront cost for advice before recommending products - but can opt to have this cost deducted from any investment made. As a result, some in the industry fear that advisers will still rely on selling new products to earn fees - irrespective of whether clients need them. "As soon as you link assets under management to fees, then it's necessary to sell a product in order to give advice," said Andrew Fisher, chief executive of Towry, the UK's largest fee-based advice group. BDO's findings also raise concerns that advisers will prefer to deal with providers from whom they currently receive commission, as they already have an established payment channel. But the Financial Services Authority (FSA) assured consumers that it would be on the look-out for any evidence of "soft bias" towards particular product providers. Next year's ban on commission, part of the FSA's Retail Distribution Review, is intended to ensure that consumers are sold only the products that are right for them, not those that pay the highest amounts to advisers. Commission payments have been blamed for some of the biggest mis-selling scandals in recent years, including payment protection insurance.