Compliance

This is my first foray into the world of blogging so apologies for any faux pas' I may make.  I plan to make a habit of this and hope that the information will be useful.  To be honest though my main motive is to generate business and with any luck some of you out there will think I know what I'm talking about and decide to give me a call.

Today though I'm going to tell you about the rigid world in which financial advisers have to live and why it doesn't seem fair to me.  

You may well have noticed that th UK economy is not exactly flying at the moment and the government are making cuts all over the place (no more free swimming for my kids at the local baths for example!).  The reason we all feel we are in this situation is because of the reclessness of Banks and Bankers.  Gordon Brown as chancellor praised the banks in the UK and fully endorsed their "self regulation" in one of his Mansion House speeches and look where that has got us.  

Which leads on to little old me sat at my desk in Farnham endeavoring to dispense good quality, meaningful advice to a handful of people, I'm a little fish in a huge pond and don't mind admitting it.  Why, therefore, do I have to jump through numerous hoops just to change some wording on my website?  This blog will have to be approved by my network's compliance department before I can post it.  The approval process can take a week which means that any breaking news I have will be a week old before it can be published. It is a constant source of frustration to me that the FSA did not regulate banks with their almost unlimited wealth and resources.  It is easier for them to pick on the small guy who can't argue.  So much of my time is taken up making sure each i is dotted and t crossed that I don't seem to have time to do my job of advising clients.

Of course I appreciate there are rogue traders out there and that each client should expect to be treated equally and receive a good level of service as standard but surely there must be a better way of doing things.

This will probably only strike a chord with those in financial services but I'm sure there are parallels in other industries too.  

First rant over, next time I might well dish out some useful information, providing it gets through compliance first!