The Financial Conduct Authority has banned and fined a financial adviser £10,000 over his failure to collect and record the necessary information about clients who were advised to invest in high risk products such as unregulated collective investment schemes.
In a decision notice, published today (4 November), the FCA fined financial adviser Clive Rosier, the sole approved person and director at Bayliss & Co (Financial Services) Limited, as he “lacked skill, care and diligence and did not communicate properly with his clients”.
According to the FCA, Mr Rosier gave investment advice to clients, including on high risk products such as Ucis, “and failed to collect and record the necessary information about his clients before recommending these products, which meant they may not have been suitable products for his clients”.
Mr Rosier also failed to communicate properly with the FCA following a request to conduct a review of some products sold by Bayliss.
As a result, the FCA has ruled that Mr Rosier is not a fit and proper person and so has banned him from holding a senior position at a financial firm. Following intervention by the FCA, Mr Rosier has not offered financial advice since September 2010.
Bill Sillett, head of FCA retail enforcement at the FCA said: “When people go for financial advice the minimum they should be able to expect from the adviser is that they are competent. Unable to demonstrate that the advice he gave was suitable for this clients, Rosier failed to live up to this standard.
“We will always act as strongly as we are able where we find that consumers are put at risk as a result of substandard financial advice.”
Mr Rosier has referred the matter to the Upper Tribunal, which will make a final decision on the case.
Mr Rosier’s previous application to the Tribunal for an order preventing the FCA from publishing the decision notice was unsuccessful.
