The FSA has named six bodies it intends to grant accredited status.

The bodies were named in the FSA’s quarterly consultation paper published today.

The six bodies are the Institute of Financial Planning, the CFA Society of the UK, the Chartered Insurance Institute for Securities and Investment, the Chartered Insurance Institute for Bankers in Scotland, the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Institute of Financial Services.

Accredited bodies play a key role in raising the standards of advisers by ensuring advisers meet required standards and are providing guidance on areas such as CPD.

To become accredited applicants needed to demonstrate to the FSA that they are acting in the public interest, carrying out effective verification services, provide evidence of this effectiveness and co-operate with the FSA on an ongoing basis.  They also have to show that they have appropriate systems and controls in place.

In the paper, the FSA acknowledged that the accredited body role was very new and that they did not expect all applicants to have these systems and controls ready.

“As the accredited body is new, it is unlikely that any accredited body is 100 per cent ready now. We are satisfied that the applicants and their independent auditors have provided sufficient detail about how they expect to implement the appropriate systems and controls between now and 31 December 2012.”

The applicants are now encouraged to publish their annual audit report and the FSA expects this to detail how they have made progress towards development of their systems and controls.