The rise in costs in the Financial Services Authority's (FSA's) latest invoice could encourage firms to manipulate figures to achieve a lower bill, an adviser has warned.
Sam Caunt, a partner at Kingston PTM, received an FSA invoice totalling £23,000 on Friday - £16,000 of which was the annual FSCS levy, a rise of 153%. "When you look at the implications, our advisers have to do another £6,000 each just to cover the extra levy," he said, equivalent to £10 per hour. "There was a £7,000 interim levy in February and there could be yet another one. There's no cap." The way the regulator calculated a firm's charge - based on the turnover, adviser numbers and the types of business it wrote - was unfair on advisers who wrote more investment business. "W...
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