Regular Reviews

by Damian Davies on 10·05·2016

It's interesting how things go in and out of fashion and financial services is no different. Suitability letters have gone from being dull, pain in the proverbial necessities to something we are keen to make more interesting and engaging.

What's more interesting is that nothing has really changed in terms of rules, instead the regulator focussed it's Sauron like gaze on suitability letters and made everyone do the same. As a result people have refocused on what their obligations really are and what the letters are designed to do. The same will soon happen with reviews and when it does, it's not just the regulator that will start to sniff around, but groups like trading standards.

Any firm charging an annual fee (either % or £) for a service needs to make sure it not only delivers that service but can also prove it has been delivered. It may seem obvious, but the advice fee needs to be for the advice service. Things like investment management are outside of this and usually the client is paying for them separately. Finally, the fee needs to be commensurate with the service being delivered.

We have recognised this has the potential to trip up almost every firm so The Timebank have designed a service to solve the problem and take responsibility of delivering your review obligations; diarising, data gathering and analysis, to the full client facing document.