It's advantage UK, at least for investors.

Financial advisors in England and the rest of the United Kingdom won't be allowed to receive commissions when selling investments pension or life insurance products, starting in 2012.

The UK's Financial Services Authority, the industry regulator, came to this conclusion as part of its review of the British financial services industry, The Financial Times reported.

Investors will be given a choice: Choose to pay a fee or have the cost of financial advice deducted from m their investment." The amount the advisor receives will be negotiated with the investor.

Harold Evensky, of Evensky & Katz in Coral Gables, doesn't hold out much hope that the same standard will ever be adopted here. But he and a small group of well-known certified financial planners and advisors are trying. They're circulating a petition to get Congress to adopt a "fiduciary standard" for the financial services industry.

Their first demand is that the advisor "put the client's best interest first."

Another plain-language concept in their petition: "Do not mislead clients; provide conspicuous, full and fair disclosure of all important facts."

"It will probably be a while (i.e., never) before we catch up with the investor protection provided investors in the U.K.," Evensky said in an e-mail.

But there's a chance. Congress seems to be in the mood to consider it.

Advisors, it would seem, may be more interested in this idea than ever before. That's considering how much suspicion is circling around their profession, due to the Madoff scandal, trouble in financial products that seemed straightforward (think target-date funds) and generally lousy investment results.