Some Financial Planning firms have failed to inspect and take on board the detail of rules surrounding disclosure of services and charging, delegates were told today.
Rory Percival, an FCA technical specialist, spoke about professionalism at the IFP's Accredited Financial Planning Firms Conference at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel in London this morning.

He explained why some firms have been falling down, in the eyes of the FCA, in terms of providing fee and services information.

Financial Planning firms were falling foul of regulations on disclosure for a couple of reasons, he said.

Many have been operating on a fee basis for many years before RDR came into place and may have felt that their terms of business were already set out, he said.

He believes some of these firms thought their charges were already clear "so they didn't look at detail of rules".

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He said: "They are quite specific and we suspect some firms may have missed that detail and not met our requirements."

While Financial Planning businesses may be providing detailed information on charges to individual clients, some have not been meeting requirements on providing broad, general charging information, Mr Percival said.

He said the second stage of disclosure may have been carried out in depth but the generic form has failed to be sufficiently clear.

Some planners have told him it is difficult because it is very much down to individual circumstances.

But he said: "That's not acceptable because we require they disclose in broad terms."

Disclosure of service and charges needs to be done "in a way that is engaging, clear and encouraging to them to take on board the things you say", he said.

The FCA has been scathing over the past year about the sector's performance in this area.

Mr Percival said: "The standards we found across the sector were unacceptable."

Some 73% failed to be clear enough, a report last year found, prompting warnings from the regulator.

Mr Percival said: "We made a very clear statement to the sector and I'm pleased to say there were material improvements and the situation was significantly better (by the time of the latest report in Autumn)."
However, he added: "There are still some areas of concerns."