FSA warns advisers over pre-packaged solutions

Speaking at The Platforum conference, the FSA’s Rory Percival said the regulator’s March Thematic Review into platforms exposed an overly-simplistic attitude to risk by advisers and he warned firms against a “one size fits all” approach. “If your proposition is a round hole but your client is a square peg do not try to hammer the client into the round hole,” said Percival. He highlighted the FSA’s concerns around some advisers’ over-reliance on platform risk-profiling tools, a tendency to “churn out” investments, inappropriate use of model portfolios and collective investment schemes ...