Financial Promotions under COBS

Description

Financial promotions are the way in which the investment and pensions market tells the public about itself. Since this subject was first regulated in the late 1980s, there have been a steady stream of compliance issues, fines and vastly expensive business reviews. With the development of social media, firms can no long focus entirely on building and operating a conventional sign-off process. They have to ensure that their employees do not break the rules in their enthusiasm to communication with their actual or potential customers. The UK COBS 4 rules in this area derive heavily from the MiFID Org Regulation provisions applicable throughout the EU. So, knowledge of one tends to help with the other. The key themes in this area remain the disclosure of risk and past performance and the need to prevent compliance from clogging up the marketing arteries.