Financial Advisors: directory of firms

Before it advises, a firm must tell you in a durable medium whether its advice is independent or restricted, explain the range of instruments it may recommend, and disclose its relationships with product issuers. Independent means the firm assesses a sufficient range of relevant products available on the market, diverse in type and issuer. Restricted means something narrower, and the firm must explain the nature of the restriction.

Restricted is not a synonym for worse. A firm may be restricted because it specialises, or because it will not advise on certain product types. What matters is whether the restriction excludes something your situation actually needs.

A firm offering both must keep the two services clearly separated, must not let a single adviser provide both, and must not give undue prominence to the independent service. If a firm is vague about which one you are getting, ask for it in writing before the fact-find begins.

The firm must set out its charging structure in writing before it advises. For anything ongoing, the disclosure has to include the total charge in cash terms, how often it is payable and over what period, exactly what service you get for it, and your right to cancel without penalty.

Where an adviser charge is spread over time, the firm must either provide a documented ongoing personal recommendation service that you can cancel, or state plainly that no ongoing service is being provided. This rule exists to stop instalment payments being dressed up as an advice relationship that never happens.

The commission ban applies to retail investment products. Pure protection products such as term life cover are outside it, which is why life cover is often still arranged on commission while an ISA or a pension is not.

Search the Financial Services Register for the firm and read its permissions. Advising on investments and arranging deals in investments are different permissions from managing investments, and a firm without the last one cannot run a discretionary portfolio for you.

Then look up the person. The Register's Directory shows individuals carrying on regulated activities, their current roles, and any disciplinary or regulatory action on their record. The Register also lists unauthorised firms, clone firms and known scams. Clones are the reason to use the phone number and website shown on the Register rather than the ones in an email.

An ongoing charge should buy an ongoing service. The FCA's rules require a firm charging for ongoing advice either to deliver a documented ongoing personal recommendation service, which you can cancel, or to say that it is providing none.

A useful review revisits whether the original objectives still stand, whether the risk profile has changed, what the investments have actually cost you, and whether tax allowances have been used. If a review is a statement in the post and no conversation, the ongoing charge is buying very little and you can stop paying it.

Regulated advice is a personal recommendation, and it carries the right to complain that the recommendation was unsuitable. Guidance and information do not. Free services funded by government, including those from the Money and Pensions Service, give impartial guidance about options; they do not tell you what to do, and you cannot claim they gave you the wrong answer.

Social media, a friend at work and a forum are none of these. If it matters, get something in writing from a firm you have found on the Financial Services Register, so that there is a recommendation with a name attached to it.

If an authorised firm has failed and cannot meet a claim, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme can pay up to 85,000 pounds per eligible person per firm for investment claims against firms that failed after 1 April 2019. The limit was 50,000 pounds for failures between 1 January 2010 and 31 March 2019.

Where the firm is still trading, the route is the Financial Ombudsman Service. For complaints referred on or after 1 April 2026 about acts on or after 1 April 2019, the Ombudsman can require a firm to pay up to 455,000 pounds, and 205,000 pounds for acts before that date. It can recommend more, but cannot compel it.