Succession warns compliance industry may be failing advisers

Ian Shipway, Succession’s financial planning director, says advisers are trusting their livelihoods to a compliance industry with an approach that lags far behind the regulator’s. He says his company regularly sees firms in which a compliance officer has judged advice as suitable based solely on clients’ sensitivity to volatility, without factoring in their capacity for loss. The FSA issued guidance in February warning advisers against using a similar practice when recommending products. To give suitable advice, IFAs must assess the risk a customer is “willing and able to take”, th...