Serious about licensing

Old Mutual is the first of the major players in the financial services industry to be awarded a licence under the new law regulating financial advisors, the Financial Services Board has announced.

Head of the board's Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (Fais) department, Manasse Malimabe, said: "Old Mutual should be commended for fully embracing the aims and objectives of Fais. We encourage other financial services providers to apply to apply for their licences as soon as possible.  So far 108 licences have been approved. However, this number is a drop in the ocean as we estimate there to be in excess of 20 000 Financial Services Providers to be licensed.”

Managing director of Old Mutual Roddy Sparks said Good advice is the foundation of wealth creation. The Fais Act will play an important role in ensuring that customers receive the right guidance in making financial decisions. We are delighted to be the first major financial services company to be licensed under the new law.

Make sure you are licensed
The Act aims to regulate the provision of a wide range of financial advisory and intermediary services to clients. After September, a Financial Services Provider may not operate without a licence issued by the Registrar of Financial Services and will be responsible for the actions of its representatives. 

The next few months will be used to ensure that any new processes and structures and properly entrenched across the business and will culminate in an internal audit being conducted to detect and correct any remaining compliance issues.

Malimabe added: "When the effective deadline date for licensing was announced at the beginning of March, the FSB indicated it would take up to two months to process applications for licences. 
 
Guidelines
"The FSB has issued guidelines to prospective licence applicants. Completed applications received before the end of April will be issued before the end of  June; before the end of May will be issued before the end of July; and before the end of July in order to be issued by the end of September. The FSB has given the undertaking that all complete applications received by 31 July will be finalised by the effective date," Malimabe said.