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You are here: Home / Archives for Regulation

Business Masterclass – Assessing Financial Strength and Insolvency

October 4, 2018 by Phil Young Leave a Comment

Why is financial due diligence an entirely necessary evil for advisers, and what are the consequences of getting it wrong?

High profile failures amongst SIPP providers, the discovery that once a platform or DFM goes into administration your client’s assets aren’t as safe as once thought, and the implications of big advice scandals for PI costs and FSCS levies, have thrown this question into sharp relief.

Business Masterclass – 14th November, Manchester

This is an interactive round table hosted by Phil Young, with presentations to prompt debate. From this you should be able to understand, amongst other things:
• What’s involved in assessing financial strength? What can go wrong?
• What options are open to business owners when unable to meet their liabilities?
• What are the FCA’s concerns? How does ‘phoenixing’ happen?
• How do you equip yourself against claims management companies?

For further information on venue, timings and to buy a ticket click here.

Matt Ward from AKG will tell us how they assess financial strength, what non-financial factors they consider and the practical problems advice firms face when it goes wrong. This covers providers, platforms and DFMs.

Mark Getliffe, Senior Director at CLB Coopers, is an insolvency practitioner with more experience than most handling insolvency proceedings for FCA regulated businesses. He will explain the options available to firms when they are unable to meet their liabilities, and use his experience to explain how the process is managed and where the FCA need to be involved.

This event will be of particular appeal to:
• Compliance, paraplanning and research personnel
• Business owners and anyone looking to acquire or sell off distressed businesses
• Advisers with business owner clients who may need assistance in this area

Buy tickets for Business Masterclass - Financial Strength and Insolvency

Filed Under: Financial Services, Regulation, Risk

I don’t want or need your email consent

May 22, 2018 by Phil Young Leave a Comment

There is a competition emerging amongst the more writerly of writers, to produce the most postmodern, ironic email which seemingly avoids directly begging for consent to bulk email you once the GDPR is in force, from 25th May.

This isn’t an entry. If you want to read my website privacy policy it’s here, and it will mean little or nothing to you I’m sure. Frankly, if you are receiving this at all it’s because you signed up to receive emails from me not very long ago and you have always had the option to unsubscribe. You gave your consent and my privacy policy was already compliant.

The GDPR has kept me busy for a good few months.

I wrote a guide on it late last year which Nucleus edited, published and made available for free here. I’ve added a few articles on it on their Illuminate site covering topics I thought nobody had dealt with on the GDPR such as managing GPPs and buying client banks. I recently did a 45 minute webinar for BrightTALK on it which you can watch here.

Data protection consultants have had a field day with the GDPR but very few, if any, seem to understand the specifics around how the rules apply, and in many cases don’t apply, to financial services firms and especially to advisers. Lawyers have directly contradicted one another when advising firms on the correct lawful basis to use and acceptable retention periods. As a result there is very little consistency on what should be a fairly standard industry approach. The will (i.e. money) has been there but there are too many loopholes for anyone to take much comfort on these two points, and whilst I don’t think the ICO will be looking to penalise anyone who at least tried to reach a conclusion, I do think we will see some changes as more clarification emerges.

Aside from using the correct lawful basis and retention polices, the other area I see mistakes regularly made is with email marketing. A good number of the email consent requests issued aren’t required, and others probably are but won’t be issued. A number of firms and individuals are ignoring the future ePrivacy Regulations (currently the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations) which will also have a significant impact. These are more relevant and important than the GDPR for electronic marketing, such as email, and in some ways set a higher standard. They don’t allow for ‘legitimate business interests’ to be used as a reason for emailing, for example, but they do allow you to email without consent in some limited circumstances.

There are also some notable companies who have consciously remained silent about what they do with your data because their business models depend on selling it on. You would not give your consent if you knew.

That said, the ICO’s guidance is on the whole a lesson in clarity which others could learn from.

I’m trying to edit an article about all this right now. It’s all tedious detail but the postmodern irony in some consent emails are often covering up a lack of understanding and certainty, which I’m sure will throw up some surprises over forthcoming months.

Filed Under: Regulation Tagged With: GDPR

Can you be GDPRsed?

February 8, 2018 by Phil Young Leave a Comment

I enjoyed writing my latest guide on the new General Data Protection Regulation for the lovely people at Nucleus. Why?

Firstly, it put me into the huge number of people in the UK who claim to be a GDPR expert, and spam me about it with no sense of irony.

Secondly, the legislation is incredibly broad, touching on almost every aspect of a business. Unlike most regulations, this isn’t just about advice. You’ll need to get hold of what’s happening in your IT, HR and payroll systems, and they might be areas you outsource or haven’t looked at for years.

Third, the rules and guidance were pretty well written. Coming off the back of MiFID II, Ulysses reads like an airline safety pamphlet. Most (not all, we consultants have to earn a living somehow) of the guidance was pretty simple and the ICO website is very good.

The guide will be released in the next few days, and adviser who subscribe to Nucleus’ Illuminate website will be notified of free workshops I’ll be running on GDPR on the 13, 14 and 15 March in London, Leeds and Edinburgh respectively.

In the meantime, if you live in Manchester, or can’t make the Nucleus dates I’ll be running the seminar on my own on the morning of 8th March. The cost is £125 plus VAT and included is a ticket to an event on employment law I’m hosting in the afternoon, free of charge. For more details read here.

Filed Under: Regulation

Top 10 Moans about MiFID

December 14, 2017 by Phil Young Leave a Comment

In my latest (unsuccessful) attempt to make the mind blowingly tedious in some way bearable, I explain the most annoying aspects of MiFID II for advisers, using an old Top of The Pops theme. All band and artists were from the same year if you want to guess it.

In case you think I look heavily medicated and wondering what I keep swigging, I had a heavy cold that day. And it was gin.

Thanks to the CISI for filming and letting me share it.

Filed Under: Regulation, Uncategorized Tagged With: MiFID, MiFID II

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