Consequently, finance professionals jointly act as an agent of the customer when they provide the diagnosis to their finance related problems and consider the best remedial action therefor, besides acting as a principal in executing with the customer the prescribed action. Mutatis mutandis, the same holds good for almost all professional services.
This inherent dual capacity, common to most professional services, naturally gives rise to conflicts of interest in cases where the professional acting as an agent, prescribes actions which he knows are to his own benefit as principal, rather than to the customers. There is nothing special about financial services in this respect.