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 life cover
Alistair MacDougall Compliance 2015, Drawdown, FCA, Pension, Pension Transfer, PI, transfer
We have seen a very large number of pension transfer suitability reports since the introduction of the pension freedoms that came out of the Pensions Act 2015. Many of these displayed two common threads running through the recommendation. First, many of the clients apparently wanted ‘flexibility’. Second, those same clients wanted ‘control’. These two […]