ABOUT US
MBR Advisory are specialist consultants offering compliance and documentation support and drafting services to Financial Advice firms. Having worked in and managed advice practices themselves, our Directors have extensive Financial Services industry experience and a practical, commercially focussed understanding of the advice sector.
YOUR ADVICE PRACTICE – HOW CAN WE HELP?
Advice practices of all sizes face an everychanging, and challenging compliance and regulatory landscape, and competing demands on their limited time. Practice principles and advisers remain, quite rightly, focussed on quality outcomes and solutions for their clients
Many IFA firms have an in-depth knowledge of their own service proposition and investment process and they also have well established working practices and processes, and preferred technology partners.However, many firms struggle to articulate and convey this in formal compliance and procedure documents, which is an FCA requirement.A common theme for many advice practices that we speak to shows that the compliance and regulatory burden of documenting their procedures and processes, and keeping these up to date with current regulatory obligations, while extremely important from a risk management perspective, continues to be a secondary focus.
Both the FCA, and increasingly adviser networks expect to see these processes fully documented in a way that is not only compliant, but reflects the manner in which advise and solutions are actually delivered to clients without conflicts between the process as documented and the way in which advice is delivered to clients.
MBR Advisory works closely with advice firms to understand their business model and client mix. Where appropriate,we will have an open discussion about alternative solutions which may be better for clients segmentationsand provide administrative efficiencies for the practice and their clients.
Client Service propositions, Client Fee Agreements, Investments (and Retirement) propositions, platform selection and due diligence, all need to be consistent in a way that is not only clear to clients, but also internally between advisers and external compliance companies and the regulator.
Finally, there is evidence that in planning the eventual sale of your practice, the market and any potential acquirers will look more closely at a firm’s compliance documentation as part of placing a valuation on the business. Firms with a comprehensively documented process with minimal conflicts can be expected to attract higher valuation multiples and will be more attractive to potential acquirers, meaning a smoother, and potentially quicker sale process.
MBR Advisory have been through the pain barrier of creating our own versions of these documents and building propositions that satisfy clients, practice principles and compliance.
