adviser firms

All seven products providers featured on Sesame's ‘focussed' restricted advice panel have denied breaching the regulator's rules on inducements, after the network was fined £1.6m last week for selling the coveted spots to the highest bidders.

Sesame, the UK's largest network of financial advisers, has been fined £1.6m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for setting up a pay-to-play scheme that "undermined the ban on commission payments brought in by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR)"....

The proportion of critical illness complaints upheld by the Financial Ombudsman Service rose by 1% to 25% in the July-September 2014 quarter.

Why should advisers work more closely with insurers? Roy McLoughlin puts his case forward after joining British Friendly as a non-exec director.

There was a 61% jump in the number of financial promotions withdrawn or amended by the FCA in the last year, from 204 in 2012/13 up to 328 in 2013/14, according to Bovill, the specialist financial services regulatory consultancy.

Chief executive of the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP) Steve Gazzard has hit out at the advice sector, saying it "hasn't worked", and that financial planning is much more important than advice.

Only one in four advisory firms operates a social media policy for staff despite its increasing use and growing scrutiny from the regulator, research suggests.

Uncertainty and a large number of options have been highlighted in case studies as a survey by Topcashback shows the majority of consumers are still failing to take out life insurance.

Openwork has chosen iPipeline's indicative underwriting tool XRAE to ‘improve and accelerate' its advice model.

Receiving a letter from the ombudsman saying a customer has made a complaint does not mean a case has been opened, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has advised.