Statements of Professional Standing

We have been awarded Accredited Body status.  Accredited Bodies have the responsibility of verifying the ongoing commitment of advisers to maintaining the standards set out by the FSA.  One of the duties of an Accredited Body is to issue Statements of Professional Standing (SPS) to all UK-based financial and investment advisers, who have demonstrated that they meet, as a minimum, these standards.We aim to undertake this role by ensuring that those applying to us for their SPS have:

- Achieved the Diploma in Investment Planning or equivalent appropriate qualification.
 - Addressed any gap fill requirements.
 - Undertaken and recorded sufficient and relevant continuing professional development each year.
 - Have declared their compliance with the Approved Persons Regime [APER].
 - Hold a valid FSA registration number.

PFA Members and the SPS

When applying for membership, all of our PFA members will have already supplied us with evidence of their qualification status. As part of their membership fee they will also be given access to a programme of CPD designed to meet the specific requirements of the RDR. Delivered online, our CPD programme allows us to actively monitor progress against the requirements on an ongoing basis and helps us reduce the additional information that must be gathered to permit the issue of an SPS.

It is our intention to issue and re-issue the SPS on the membership anniversary and since we operate a rolling membership year this issue/reissue will be different for each member helping to avoid any ‘log jams’ in the process to ensure that as long as you continue to meet the requirements you will always hold a valid SPS.

SPS Verification Service

We also understand that many employers will actively support their advisers through dedicated and role relevant CPD and that this may significantly overlap if not fully meet what is required by the regulator. For this reason we will also offer a verification service for employers - particularly those with large populations of advisers for whom they wish to take full responsibility for ensuring that the RDR standards are met. By working closely with the employer to provide a cost effective solution to delivering the objectives of the RDR we aim to support employers in raising the standards of professionalism in the sector.

Organisations wishing to apply for the verification service must undergo a full review by the Institute to can demonstrate to us that they operate a relevant programme of CPD that fully meets the new standards and which provides detailed records of qualification information and CPD activity for each adviser. The employer must also satisfy us that their advisers also adhere to a code of conduct, no less rigour than that which we require of our own members. Working together with the employer the service is aimed at ensuring we are able to verify the full data required in order to issue the SPS for each adviser. This would include the detailed review of a random sample of the organisation’s adviser population prior to the release of the SPS.
For more information on whether the verification service is right for your organisation, please e-mail shona@charteredbanker.com.

Important deadlines

Existing advisers  must ensure they hold a valid SPS within 60 days of 31st December 2012.

All other advisers must obtain their SPS within 60 days of achieving their adviser status.