Compliant FCA Financial Promotions – Advertising

When it comes to financial promotions, any regulated business should know that it’s not just the end result that’s important. The promotion’s review process and sign off procedure – and the audit trail created as a result – are all equally relevant when it comes to regulatory requirements. Don’t forget, FCA financial promotions include Social Media!

Below we examine how to make sure your record retention for financial promotions meets the FCA’s requirements.

• A firm must make an adequate record of any financial promotion it communicates or approves, other than a financial promotion made in the course of a personal visit, telephone conversation or other interactive dialogue.
• Any promotion made during a personal visit, or over the phone, is considered a ‘real time’ promotion by the regulator and is subject to different rules.  The exception to the telephone rule is telemarketing, where conversations are more structured and planned, and where firms must keep ‘an adequate record’ of any scripts used.

A log should be kept of all financial promotions approvals. This needs to include quite a large amount of information. and this includes Social Media.

• A unique log item number or identifying reference number for each financial promotion
• The name of the campaign, campaign item or individual financial promotion
• A description of the product(s) in question
• The name of the promotion’s owner/ originator
• The date
• Details of the media to be used
• The name of the person providing Compliance sign off
• The date final approval was given by the approved person
• The name of the approved person providing final approval
• Adequate space for notes, comments or cross-referencing
• The expiry date or review date for the promotion

• The date of sponsor sign off
• The date of marketing sign off

The sorts of things you need to keep copies of include: 

• A copy of the final approved item, with evidence of approval from your Compliance/Quality Assurance team. This approval can be either in the form of a manual or electronic signature/reference number
• A Marketing approval form, showing sign-off from an appropriately authorised member of the Marketing team
• Any relevant documentation, e.g:
• Substantiation / rationalisation for any claims
• Suitable evidence of any facts, figures or options used
• Signed consent from anyone providing endorsements or testimonials
• Product details (if applicable)

• If a financial promotion relates to a pension transfer, pension conversion, pension opt-out or FSAVC, it needs to be kept indefinitely
• If it relates to a life policy, occupational pension scheme, SSAS, personal pension scheme or stakeholder pension scheme, it needs to be kept for six years
• If it relates to MiFID (the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) or ‘equivalent third country business’, it needs to be kept for five years.

If you need to create, review or execute your Governance, Risk or Compliance strategy, call us today on

0207 097 1434 or email info@complianceconsultant.org.

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