How to check if a Financial Adviser is authorised

In our recent post, 5 Top Tips to find a good Independent Financial Adviser (IFA), we recommended that you checked the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) website, to check that your Independent Financial Adviser is listed on the FCA website as being “Authorised”, before proceeding.

The FCA is the regulator of Financial Advisers and their website is the number one place to go to check out your Adviser.

How else can you check?

Well, a new website called AdviserBook has recently been launched to try to make it easier to understand which Advisor firms are authorised and in what areas of business. The website is designed to be much more user friendly than the FCA website and allows you to search for authorised and regulated Financial Advisers close to you by offering a postcode search option.

The website gets its information on authorised and regulated firms directly from the FCA, so the only way to get onto the AdviserBook directory is to be a real firm.

AdviserBook’s stated aims are to 1) Help stop scams by only listing regulated financial advisers 2) Help the public by allowing them to choose firms appropriate to them and 3) To help advisor firms to gain better exposure.

So, if you are finding the FCA website difficult to understand and navigate you can also try AdviserBook.

Our advice still remains the same though, whoever you choose, please make sure you check that your Financial Adviser is fully authorised and able to provide you with the type of advice you ned before going ahead.