An approved Financial Adviser has been charged £290,344 and banned from giving financial advice after recommending a number of complex and high risk products to clients who were on low incomes and with no evident investment experience.

In some cases it was found that the financial adviser had invested in unregulated products without the client’s acknowledgment.

The FCA found the financial adviser guilty of a wide range of issues due their lack of honesty and integrity, such as:

• Recommending high risk investment products to 8 retail clients, knowing he was unable to validate the suitability of the product
• Creating risk documents outlining product risk areas and falsely claiming to have sent the documents to the clients.
• Submitted false and misleading information on behalf of the clients
• Investments were made on behalf of two clients without the clients’ consent.
• Involved in recreating clients’ signatures for sophisticated investor certificates

This fine represents the action that the FCA will take if firms and advisers do not provide honest recommendations and fail to put the best interests of their clients first.

For further information on the FCA’s actions in this case, please click here.