2022-03-22 GDD
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Who are we?<br />
We are a firm of financial advisers based in South Wales. We started in 2004 and serve<br />
customers across the UK.<br />
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct<br />
Authority (FCA). You can check our registration at<br />
https://register.fca.org.uk/ under the Firms Register<br />
Number: 40<strong>22</strong>91.<br />
We are directly regulated by FCA Financial advice firms can be regulated directly by the<br />
FCA, or an appointed representative of another directly regulated firm.<br />
We are independent. Financial advisers as either ‘independent’, or ‘restricted’. FCA rules set<br />
out that a firm describing itself as independent must:<br />
'assess a sufficient range of relevant products available on the market which must be<br />
sufficiently diverse with regard to their type; and issuers or product providers, to ensure that<br />
the client’s investment objectives can be suitably met; and not be limited to relevant<br />
products issued or provided by the firm itself or by entities having close links with the firm; or<br />
other entities with which the firm has such close legal or economic relationships, including<br />
contractual relationships, as to present a risk of impairing the independent basis of the<br />
advice provided.' (See FCA Handbook COBS 6.2B.11)<br />
These are the key differences between independent and restricted financial advisers:<br />
Independent<br />
Restricted<br />
Will consider all retail investment products Yes No<br />
Can focus only on a particular market No Yes<br />
Can consider products only from certain product providers No Yes<br />
Has to explain to you the type of advice they offer Yes Yes<br />
Can use ‘independent’ to describe the advice they offer Yes No<br />
Incentivised to recommend one product over another No No<br />
Page 4 of 34 General Disclosure Document 23/3/<strong>20<strong>22</strong></strong>