I know what you’re already thinking – ‘an article about compliance? Well, this will be either depressing or boring’.
Hopefully this article will be neither. I want to go over 3 highlights of our year in Compliance at IFP over the last 12 months and give an insight into what Compliance means to us. Maybe a bold claim, but we feel we do Compliance differently here.
File Reviews
All our high-risk advice is checked externally before it’s presented to our clients. This means we can ensure our tailored advice is suitable before we even give our recommendations. By having our advice checked externally, we ensure impartiality, and an objective review of our advice can be done.
In the last 12 months, 98% of our files were graded ‘Suitable’ without any tweaks needed to the advice whatsoever. Our amazing success in this area is twofold:
- A brilliant team behind each piece of advice – Chartered Advisers, Paraplanners and Client Support teams. Each staff member genuinely cares about our clients and the advice we provide, putting their needs and essentially, Compliance, first. They make our jobs in Compliance so much easier.
- Our attitude – many see Compliance as ‘business prevention’ in the financial services world, that’s a fact. We like to think that doesn’t apply at IFP. We have worked over the last few years to develop a healthy and positive relationship with our Advisers and Paraplanners, to find solutions together, rather than put obstacles in the way.
As our motto says, we are ‘one team who are client centred, invests in its people and who do the right thing, always’.
Exam Success
Learning never stops in Financial Services, especially in Compliance. The Compliance Team’s latest recruit, Maggie, is smashing through her R0 exams and is more than three-quarters of the way to her Diploma with a 100% pass success. Expect a full release on her success in the next 6 months (no pressure, Maggie).
In October 2020, I passed J07 (Supervision in a Regulated Environment) and after a little break, I’ll be looking to get back into the exams in the coming months.
Award Success
Sometimes it’s easy to think of Compliance as the people who get locked away in the cupboard, away from prying eyes, so it was fabulous when our Head of Compliance, Anj, was recognised and was a finalist for the Thrive Award at this year’s Verve Awards in London. Think there may have been some sore heads the morning after that one.
Compliance starts from the top down at IFP, which has a positive impact on all our clients and the service and advice they receive.
I’m going to end my article here to make sure I meet the target of this article not being boring, but you can be the judge of that. ✌🙂
By Lewis Atkinson, Compliance Officer
