CURRENT ACCOUNT: IFG, for its part, has spent €60 million in the past three years on a host of small IFA acquisitions, the biggest being the €20 million spent on Berkeley Jacobs. IFG's chain puts it among the top 10 IFAs in Britain and IFG chief executive Richard Hayes said only a few months ago that he planned to spend €30 million on more acquisitions in the sector.
Most of the coverage of the British Financial Services Authority's (FSA's) proposal to abolish the distinction between independent financial advisers (IFAs) and agents tied to specific providers of financial products has tended to focus on the consumer angle.
That is not surprising, given the scope of the changes proposed by the FSA and the impact they would have on the way life assurance, savings and pension products are sold if they are implemented.
But from a corporate viewpoint, Bank of Ireland and IFG will be looking very closely at what emerges from the consultations between the FSA and the industry in Britain.
Bank of Ireland and IFG have invested heavily in developing an IFA presence in Britain. They have adopted contrasting strategies, with Bank of Ireland spending the best part of €300 million (£236 million) in the past 18 months on Chase de Vere, Willis National and MoneyXtra.com.
The latter two businesses have been merged under Bank of Ireland's Bristol & West subsidiary, under the name MX Financial Solutions, although Chase de Vere has been kept separate from the Bristol & West branch network.
For IFG the implications are two-pronged. On one hand, if the FSA proposals are enacted it will mean that the bigger and better quality IFAs will become more expensive as the big British life and pension companies look for networks through which they can sell their products. Against this background, it seems unlikely that IFG will be able to expand its IFA business at anything like the rate it has in recent years and may force chairman Joe Moran and Mr Hayes to rethink their strategy.
On the other hand, Messrs Hayes and Moran know well that, if the FSA proposals are put into operation, IFG could become a takeover target, whatever about the company's desire to be one of the consolidators in the sector and not a target for that consolidation.
Some believe, however, rather than taking over IFAs, some of the big insurers may take minority stakes in selected IFAs who would also sell their products under the multi-tied arrangement suggested by the FSA.
Against that background, it is worth noting that CGNU - which already has small stakes in some of the quoted British IFAs - has recently increased its stake in IFG from less than 2 per cent to just under 6 per cent after buying more shares this week.
For Bank of Ireland, which has made no secret of its wish to expand its fee-based activities in Britain, the FSA proposals are most unwelcome. The bank has already spent €300 million on building a presence in the IFA sector but price tags for the bigger and better IFAs are undoubtedly going to rise if the "polarisation" that exists between IFAs and tied agents becomes a thing of the past.
