The Financial Markets Authority yesterday warned about Brian Ferguson, who it said had copied and pasted client signatures into insurance policy documents.
He was dobbed in by his dealer group, which also "showed him the door".
It’s not the first time the regulator has made public comment about an adviser, without taking further action.
In 2016, the FMA made public details of a warning it gave to a unnamed financial adviser who advised his clients of an alternative life cover plan with a different insurance provider but did not tell them about the policy pricing. He then provided a direct debit form to the clients, which they ignored.
He completed and submitted the direct debit form on his clients’ behalf, without authority, and completed and submitted a declaration of good health on his clients’ behalf without authority.
Compliance expert Gavin Austin said there could be long-term repercussions for those people in the new regime, even though they had not been penalised any further.
They would be unlikely to be signed off as fit to receive a license to run their own financial advice provider, he said, and would find others unlikely to take them on, too.
Under the current Financial Markets Conduct Act requirements, those applying for a licence must meet “fit and proper” tests. Austin said similar would be expected of advisers.
“I don’t think they would ever be accepted as a nominated representative of any organisation. And I don’t believer they would pass the good conduct test for licensing.”
A spokesman for the Financial Markets Authority said it was not clear cut.
“Any compliance history that a person has is something that is commonly taken into account in licensing decisions, but is not necessarily a disqualifying feature.”
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That aside, prima facie, there is inequality between the sanctions in 2016 case reported and this 2018 event.
In 2016 it seems the adviser completed both a DD (doesn't that need the account holders signature(s) - so there must at least be a suggestion of a crime - forgery), and a declaration of good health on behalf of a client who did not appear to want to take out. The sanction here was an anonymised warning.
In 2018 the adviser didn't get the 2 clients to sign the application forms, but cut and pasted their signatures. Presumably the application form was scanned and submitted electronically - otherwise the insurer surely would have noted the unusual way they were signed. The adviser claims the clients knew. Prima facie, they wanted the cover - of course the adviser was sloppy. But that warrants a public naming and shaming.
All I'm pointing out is the treatment seems to be quite unequal.