Richard Craven, the co-founder of the now defunct IFA firm Money Portal, is launching a new advisory firm along with Allen Swaine, director of Swaines, Glyn Clarke of Bates and other Money Portal former colleagues, Money Marketing reports.

As regulatory approval is still pending, the new IFA firm, Obsidian Financial, currently trades as an appointed representative of HCF, the report said. Mr Craven’s appointment as a director of Obsidian also still awaits the nod from the Financial Services Authority.

Mr Craven was chief executive of Money Portal until the appointment of Mark Lund in 2008 whereupon he became executive vice chairman, according to the publication. Money Portal was put into administration in June.

The UK IFA industry, like other areas of financial services such as private banking, is seeing heightened M&A activity – along with a number of new launches – as a result of last year’s turmoil, and despite the economic uncertainty that still lies ahead, now is arguably a good time to launch a new IFA firm.

With the regulator’s Retail Distribution Review’s shake-up of the industry many existing advisors face an onerous task in overhauling their practices to meet the FSA’s new guidelines. In addition, many argue that trust in the big financial institutions has been eroded, leaving new entrants to the market to exploit clients' disillusionment.