Cisi talking to other bodies over FCA 'mistake'

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Cisi talking to other bodies over FCA 'mistake'

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments is working with other professional bodies to correct a “bad mistake” the Financial Conduct Authority is making, Simon Culhane has said.

The chief executive of the Cisi was addressing his body’s financial planning conference yesterday when he took up the issue of the FCA’s register.

Mr Culhane has previously expressed concern about changes the regulator is making which he said would mean advisers would no longer have a register.

He said: “The FCA is in the process of changing its approved person regime. The public will no longer be able to check on an adviser’s suitability.

“We think this is a retrograde step. Financial planners will no longer have a register and we think it is a bad mistake.

“We are seeing whether we can form a consortium of other professional bodies to recreate a modern day register.”

The problem is created by the introduction of the senior managers’ regime.

When it was introduced in March advisers who worked for the firms affected by it – mainly banks and large financial institutions – were no longer listed on the register and were listed as “inactive”.

Under the regime – which is in the process of being expanded to all financial advisers by 2017 – only senior managers are listed on their firm’s register entry.

Mr Culhane also addressed the Cisi’s merger with the Institute of Financial Planning which went ahead last year.

He said: “We did have a couple of bumps. The whole point of the two bodies coming together was to grow financial planning.

“Last month we achieved one of the key aims we set out to do: we have delivered that level four qualification, we got the FCA approval a few days ago so now for the first time we can start people on the road to becoming a chartered financial planner.

“It is regrettable that we lost 18 per cent of the former IFP members, which is a shame. We want to grow and they will be very welcome to come back.”