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.



Advising non-UK clients
Alistair MacDougall Compliance Conduct, EEA, email, EU, FCA, MiFID, passport, PI, vulnerable
Despite the fact that the UK ceased to be a member of the EU/EEA almost a year ago, we are still asked for advice around how a UK firm can take on a new non-UK client or continue to deal with such clients that the firm had pre-BREXIT. We have written before about the general […]