The FCA employs a principle based approach to regulation. Principle 7 states that “A firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading.”
This is a fundamental cornerstone required of all client communication.
While some degree of technical information is inevitable, your suitability reports should nevertheless be easily understood. One effective way to test the clarity of your suitability reports is to ask a friend or family member, who has no financial services experience, and who is more likely to provide frank observations, to read and to provide critical feedback.
Pension Transfers – considering a workplace pension
Alistair MacDougall Compliance Defined Benefit, FCA, Pension, Pension Transfer, PI, Switch, transfer
We recently reviewed a pension transfer report where the client was recommended to transfer out of the defined benefit scheme into the client’s pre-existing SIPP. We considered that the recommendation to transfer appeared to be appropriate. However, the client had what the FCA calls an ‘available qualifying scheme’, more commonly referred to as a […]