FSA withdraws Rockingham's advice permissions

Has Rockingham been rucking 'em or words to that effect?

I don't understand why the FSA would withdraw it's permission to advice but allow direct/execution only sales to continue.

to anonymous 1, probably so they can pay the fine they will no doubt get !!

"Anonymous 1I don't understand why the FSA would withdraw it's permission to advice but allow direct/execution only sales to continue."

Execution only does not require advice, therefore once they have adequalty amended their policies and procedures they will be given them permissions back. Unless there is another reason FSA has changed their permissions.

Why do people so often yet so foolishly try to defy the fundamental laws of economics? Funds of this type are virtually in UCIS territory and to advise anyone to put all their eggs in such a basket is reckless in the extreme.

Once again, though, the question one has to ask is for how long these activities going on before the FSA decided to investigate? Okay, the investment choice wouldn't have shown up on the firm's Gabriel returns (one wonders what of any real value does), but it certainly would have done on any compliance visit.

Just how many DR firms are there and how many FSA compliance inspectors are there to pay them a visit once in a while? How much would it cost to employ a few score compliance inspectors on a freelance basis? Probably a hell of a lot less than all these stupid consultation exercises on which the FSA loves to blow millions of pounds of other peoples' money every year. WAKE UP FSA ~ this is the sort of thing on which a Cost:Benefit Analysis might be useful. God, why do I bloody bother?

Julian Stevens is spot on

A lot of money is being made dressing up dross and putting it into fine boxes. However attractive the package looks,- caveat emptor - they still will only contain dross

Stick with it Julian, always worth hearing your views (meant honestly not sarcastically!!)

The Firm did have regular External Compliance visits, and they were repeatedly advised not to deal in this market. However, external compliance advisers cannot tell a Firm how to run their business, unless they want to heed the advice given!

Sorry, but you're simply reporting the earlier story!! "Rockingham suspdended annuity and drawdown sales and closed its website in July after an FSA visit."

This is a so-called 'voluntary variation of permission'. You saw the same thing with A20 and, as you reported earlier this week, Pave Financial Management. What happens is that when the FSA Supervision first refers the matter to supervision, they will ask for the 'voluntary variation' i.e. stop some or all of your business.

If you refuse, they will either take that into account in setting the fine, or(if they're really worried about you), they will then go through the formal process of asking the RDC to issue a 'supervisory notice' suspending permissions...

Are you guys trawling the FSA register looking for this stuff, or is somebody in Canary Wharf pointing you to it???

MIB is, as is often the case, quite right. This is not a new story but one reworked from June. I agree with his suggestion that some poor mug has to keep a vigil on the FSA website, with a likely pointer from some being in Canary Towers.

This really isn't Watergate.

Not long ago I had to talk a client out of wanting to transfer £100k pension fund into their offering with 10% interest pa and 100% capital return. (small print read but these are not guaranteed) after doing due dilligence on the underlying provider we told the clients to stay away and I then questioned how Rockingham could market such a product on such a broad spectrum. Surly the FSA should have seen their promotions in the press and queried it before it all went wrong ?

Maybe that was me - I have a letter stating it was a safe investment,low risk etc. Mug! I thought FSA registered meant something.