Scrutton Bland’s Financial Planning Department holds the prestigious title of Chartered status. Adviser spoke to Financial Planning Partner and Chartered Adviser Grant Buchanan to find out more about what this means for the service our clients can expect.
What does being ‘Chartered Financial Planners’ mean?
If a Financial Planning firm isn’t Chartered then does that mean they should be avoided? There are lots of ways to get financial advice, but this is not an area where you want to cut corners – you may end up paying for the cost of poor advice for many years. There’s been quite a bit in the news recently about some advisers misselling pension advice, for example where people have been wrongly advised to transfer pensions, or to buy property overseas which then turns out to have been a scam. Many non-Chartered financial advisers are perfectly satisfactory, but you should ask yourself why you would use an adequate service when you can use one that has been independently verified on their professional excellence and integrity?
Scrutton Bland has had the status of Chartered Financial Planners since 2015. It is awarded by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and is the financial services’ gold standard for firms of financial planners. It confirms that we have satisfied rigorous qualification criteria such as retaining highly-qualified staff, and we are tested against this criteria every year by the CII when we apply to have our status renewed. Being Chartered means that a firm must be committed to continuing professional development and adhere to an industry standard Code of Ethics. When you use a Chartered firm you can be assured that you are dealing with proven professionals. The CII is empowered by the Privy Council to award Chartered status, and only the UK’s premier financial planning firms qualify for Chartered status.
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