Simon Hawker,IFA St Albans -Our advisers are competent to offer financial advice

Tuesday 16 April, 2019

How we ensure Lonsdale financial advisers remain competent to offer you appropriate financial planning advice?

Lonsdale Wealth Management ensures all the financial planning teams undertake regular training so all our colleagues provide the most appropriate service to our clients. We offer financial planning advice on investment planning, pensions, retirement planning, inheritance tax and estate planning and protection. Our Lonsdale financial advisers also work closely with the mortgage brokers in Lonsdale Mortgages who provide mortgage advice to our clients.

Regular training for financial planning teams

All Lonsdale financial planning teams must undertake regular training throughout the year to remain competent to offer financial planning advice. Our colleagues have to complete and pass training modules and tests supplied by our compliance provider. These include: Data Protection, Complaints, Treating Customers Fairly (TCF), Finance, Money Laundering, UK Financial Services & Regulation and Compliance. Our financial planning consultants must complete the same exams and several other advanced financial planning tests depending on their specialisms.

Changes to pension and investment legislation and how it affects financial planning

Our financial planning teams also have access to our compliance provider where we can access up to date information and review any changes to pension and investment legislation. Our compliance provider will assess the information for us and confirm how it will affect the financial planning advice we provide.

Simon Hawker, Managing Director, Lonsdale Services, St Albans, Hertfordshire said:

‘Each year we invite our compliance provider to meet with all our independent financial advisers to assess they are competent to continue giving financial planning advice. This is not required by the Financial Conduct Authority but we pay to use an external company to formally assess our independent financial advisers annually so we are confident all our financial advisers offer the correct financial planning advice and provide the best possible service to our clients. Our compliance provider will interview our financial advisers and discuss their training schedule and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) log before assessing them in a practice client interview. I believe it is important we continue to use this vetting process and allow our compliance provider to sign off each individual financial adviser so our clients are satisfied that we do the upmost to ensure our Lonsdale Wealth Management financial advisers always provide consistent financial planning advice.’

Simon Hawker, member of the St Albans financial planning team continued:

‘We use an experienced compliance provider who offers regular events and conferences on key financial planning areas so our financial advisers attend appropriate training that counts towards their CPD. We monitor the online training of all the financial planning teams to ensure they pass the appropriate tests each year and are competent to work within financial planning.’

In Summary

It is important when choosing a financial adviser that you discuss what training they undertake each year and understand how they stay up to date with new legislation as it affects the financial planning advice they offer. If you would like to discuss your financial planning requirements with an independent Lonsdale financial adviser we have offices in St Albans, Harpenden, Barnet, Leeds / Bradford, Stafford, Ringwood and Ware. For more information contact us or email enquiries@lonsdaleservices.co.uk

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