Professional Adviser – ‘Baldrick levels of stupidity’ as FCA leaves advisers unsearchable for a year

In policy statement PS19/7, published on Friday (8 March), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed there will be a 12 month period between December 2019 and December 2020 when advisers will not be searchable on any regulated public register or directory.

Advisers who are not held to be ‘senior managers’ under the regulator’s incoming Senior Manager & Certification Regime (SM&CR) will be taken off the financial services register on 9 December 2019 when the regulation comes into play.

At the same time, advisers will not appear on the new directory, which will hold information on every single financial adviser, until December 2020. This means there will be a whole year where advisers cannot be searched by consumers on an official, regulated database.

News of the year-long hiatus did not go down well among the adviser community.

IFS Wealth & Pensions Chartered financial planner Ricky Chan felt the FCA should extend advisers’ place on the register to cover the time before the directory goes live in order to mitigate poor consumer outcomes.

“I have always been against the FCA dropping ‘normal’ advisers off the register – and the FCA’s answer has always been ‘we’re launching a new directory that will host everyone’,” he said.

“Given there is going to be a gap, it only makes sense that they should postpone cutting advisers off the current register.”

Chan also voiced concerns the hiatus could end up going on for longer than 12 months. “It is a terrible idea, even if it is going to be a relatively short one-year gap,” he said. “Consumers looking for advice during that time will want to know where is a register for them to verify the advisers and, if there isn’t one, then there is potential for poor consumer outcomes.

“There could also be issues when launching the directory that cause delays, so it might not even be December 2020. It could be even longer and, in the meantime, you have clients and prospects unable to search. And from the regulator, that is unacceptable.”