This page shows our latest analysis of the intermediary sector based on data drawn from the Retail Mediation Activities Return (RMAR) for 2022.
Firms that provide advice on, or arrange, mortgages, insurance policies or retail investment products for consumers must send us information about their activities on the RMAR.
We use this information to help us supervise the activities of these intermediary firms and inform our other regulatory functions. We have published data from the RMAR since 2016. This analysis gives an update on firms in the retail intermediary sector based on data for 2022.
The data on this page reflects returns submitted to us by firms for periods ending within 2022.
In our analysis we categorise firms based on their main type of regulated business activity, for example financial advisers, insurance intermediaries, mortgage brokers. In our 2020 publication we changed the internal methodology used to categorise firms. Some firms may have changed category due to this, so care should be taken when comparing the 2 data sets from and after 2020 at the category level.
Key findings
- Compared to 2021, reported revenue earned from retail investment intermediation in 2022 increased by 3% to £5.5 billion as shown in Figure 1.
- Reported revenue earned from mortgage broking also rose by 12% to £1.58 billion in 2022, compared to £1.4 billion in 2021 as shown in Figure 2.
- Revenue from non-investment insurance distribution rose by 10% to £21.2 billion as shown in Figure 3.
- The share of retail investment revenue accounted for by commission fell from 14% in 2021 to 13% in 2022. For non-investment insurance distribution and mortgage broking, commission remains the primary source of revenue, accounting for 84% for non-investment insurance distribution (unchanged since 2021) and 78% for mortgage broking (compared to 80% in 2021).
- The reported number of retail investment adviser posts across all firms rose to 37,381 in 2022 compared to 36,674 in 2021. The reported number of mortgage adviser posts also rose slightly to 36,441 compared to 36,211 in 2021.
- Of the number of firms providing retail investment advice in 2022, 86% of firms provided independent advice. Conversely, 12% of firms provided restricted advice. The percentage of all firms that provided both restricted and independent advice in 2022 was 1%. This has remained the same as 2021.
Download underlying data for 2022 (XLSX) [1]
Trends in revenue 2016-2022
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Data table
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Copyright
The data on this page is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence[2].