Personal Finance Society launches Good Practice Hub
26 February 2015
As part of a wider strategy to provide enhanced good practice guidance for members, the Personal Finance Society (PFS) has launched a new Good Practice Hub.
Sharing and applying good practice is a characteristic of all professions and with such a large membership; the Personal Finance Society is ideally placed to facilitate this process for the financial advice profession.
Encouraging good practice sharing is a focus for President David Thomas who commented: "Within our sector there is evidence of many firms operating efficiently, compliantly and profitably. By sharing examples of good practice amongst our wider membership we can further raise standards and build our profession."
The Hub was launched with its first Good Practice Guide entitled, ‘Adviser research & due diligence on discretionary investment managers’. This guide, created in partnership with Diminimis aims to provide clarity and guidance around the process of effective due diligence and research before appointing or working with a Discretionary Investment Manager (DIM).
This specialism can often be an area of confusion for advisers as both they and the DIM are providing a service to the same client. Ensuring a smooth, joined-up approach with a DIM that you can work alongside seamlessly is essential for a good client experience and this starts with a robust due diligence process.
Personal Finance Society Chief Executive, Keith Richards added: “Due Diligence will continue to be a key area of regulatory focus and is therefore an area where good practice guidance can provide greater practical clarity for advisers.”
The Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Technical Specialist, Rory Percival, recently commented: “We are looking at due diligence because when we look at the root causes of unsuitable advice, of all the cases we have looked at over the last four or five years pretty much 100 per cent of unsuitable advice came back with one of three answers; inadequate due diligence was one of those.”
The launch of the Hub provides members with a central repository of resources to help benchmark and apply good practice. Further Good Practice Guides are in development and will be added to the Hub over the coming weeks.
Members can access the Hub via www.thepfs.org/good-practice
