Financial advisers are required to provide Statements of Advice
(SOAs) that are "clear, concise and effective". But what
does this actually mean in practice? We share some tips and
identify some common mistakes based on our reviews of hundreds, if
not thousands, of SOAs.
1. Consider the SOA's primary purpose
SOAs are usually drafted with compliance obligations in mind. A
financial adviser's compliance obligations are, of course, very
important. However, an SOA is not simply a compliance tool. An
SOA's primary purpose is to provide your client with enough
information for them to make an informed decision about whether to
act on your advice. An SOA should be drafted with this primary
purpose in mind. Templates are valuable documents and certainly
have a role to play in the advice process. However, it's
important that you don't rely too heavily on a template. We
can't stress this enough; we regularly see SOAs that are
heavily templated and have not been tailored to
