Of course everyone wants to make sure that any financial services companies likely to cause ‘foreseeable harm’, to use the current vernacular, are tackled and excluded. Making public details of anyone under investigation, however, is surely not the right way to go about it. Even in this business, surely innocent until proven guilty must hold some sway? I’m not saying that no action should be taken until, for instance, directors of scamming companies are actually sent down for fraud – although that does sometimes seem to be the case at the moment. The risk, however, is death by accusation, as a it would be the best clients who might leave an innocent but tainted adviser and put them out of business. And those being conned by the conmen may well be the last to read the business pages or check the FCA register and continue to be fleeced until they’re taken down, go bust and everything is handed over the compensation scheme (paid for by us…and you).
“FCA announces plan to reduce regulatory burden on financial services firms”
Our regulator’s latest initiative is to reduce the amount of regulation. It’s become apparent that their previous big initiative, ‘consumer duty’, has made many look at the work they do and clients they look after, and decide that to do the job properly they have to look after less and perhaps charge more for complying with all the detailed compliance the rules require.
