Financial advisors legislation has raised minimum standards among financial advisers in areas such as confidentiality, competence, client disclosures, potential conflicts of interest, and the need for financial advisors to "know their client".

Research into the financial planning industry has shown that the top 5 pitfalls for financial planners are a lack of documented procedures and policies to support business practices; insufficient embedding of compliance policies and procedures into business operations; inadequate supervision by directors and principals of their employees and representatives; lack of full disclosure of benefits, interests and costs to clients and inadequate in-house training about compliance and ethics.

To assist the needs of financial planners, ComplianceAsia will

• Undertake reviews of business operations to determine the level of compliance with local requirements and identify areas of non-compliance
• Assess compliance with client take-on, your know your client and anti-money laundering procedures
• Assess compliance with needs analysis, investor profiling and recommendation suitability requirements
• Assess client disclosure and record keeping procedures
• Assess adherence to training and competence requirements