Online investment platform Rplan.co.uk found that 13 per cent of financial advisers have stopped offering services to over 20 per cent of their clients as not commercially viable since the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review, which was designed to bring greater transparency to the financial advice process.

Since the new legislation, one in three financial advisers have established or increased a minimum portfolio size for clients. One in four (26 per cent) now requires over £30,000 in investable assets, including Isas and pensions.

Stuart Dyer, chief investment officer at RPlan, said: “Investors are clearly finding it more difficult to secure financial advice and given that our findings reveal 56 per cent of advisers are planning to stop servicing some existing client accounts over the next 12 months, the advice gap is likely to become bigger.”