Alison Beeston, compliance & communications manager at Bridgewater Equity Release, said all advisers must be able to demonstrate their competency to give advice.
"Advisers should ask themselves how they can be treating their customers carefully if they cannot demonstrate they are competent to give advice," she said. Qualifications are part of being competent and you cannot state you are competent to give equity release advice without the exam. But, advisers must build upon this after gaining the qualification and firms must focus on adviser’s ongoing training needs.”
Focusing on the requirements to prove competency in the equity release market, Beeston said all advisers need to ensure their skills, knowledge, expertise and ethics were of the highest standards to meet the FSA’s requirements.
There was also a warning for those advisers currently giving equity release advice with the news that the FSA were expected to carry out another mystery shopping exercise on the sector early next year.
Beeston said: “I have it on good authority that the FSA will be doing another shopping exercise in Q1 2008 and therefore brokers should protect themselves and make sure they have a recorded development plan to prove to the regulator their ongoing competency.”
