Regulation and Redress image


Regulation

At Ethical Futures we believe in openness and transparency. Therefore, we are providing for your information, full details of our business and regulatory status, advice permissions and professional standing.

In addition, to this as well as confirming it in our terms of business documents, we have provided full details about financial services protections available on financial products that we may recommend and also details about who to consult if you have a complaint of need for redress.

Ethical Futures are an independent business, owned as a limited liability partnership by Julian Parrott and Martin Wight. The business is registered in Scotland no: S0300638. Please see our companies house registration for further details.

Ethical Futures are authorised and regulated by the Finance Conduct Authority (FCA) registration no: 552583. For further details on our regulatory status and permissions, see our entry on the FCA register.

There are broadly two types of advice in the financial services market place, 'Independent' or 'Restricted'. Independent advice is unbiased and unrestricted, and based on a comprehensive and fair analysis of the relevant market. Advice that is not independent is labelled as 'Restricted Advice'; for example, advice on a limited range of products or providers. The advice type that we offer is Independent.

The regulator has assessed that we are eligible to call ourselves independent but within a specialist area of advice. We specialise in ethical and socially responsible investments and therefore will only consider investments for clients from a universe of funds and services which are ethically screened or adopt a socially responsible or sustainable approach to investment. Where unscreened funds, products or services may meet with our client's objective we will verify with them first that these are acceptable.

Our advisers hold individual FCA registration and also have to maintain an annual certification of professional standing issued by their professional body.

Julian Parrott personal FCA registration no: JRP00019 and his SPS is provided by The Personal Finance Society

Martin Wight personal FCA registration no: MJW01384 and his SPS is provided by the Institute of Financial Services

Our business has engaged the services of a consultancy, ATEB Consulting, to assist with adherence to regulatory and compliance requirements. We work with them on a regular basis to monitor business activity and standards.

Ethical Futures maintains professional indemnity insurance in respect of our advice and responsibilities.

We take the privacy of your personal data seriously and are registered with the Scottish Information Commissioner (registration reference Z9106905) in respect of our data protection responsibilities.

Complaints and Redress

We very much hope that you will have a positive experience in your engagement of Ethical Futures. One of the things that we focus on is taking due care to establish that the bulk of investments that we recommend are protected by regulation and protection schemes. Where products or services that we recommend are not protected, we will confirm this to you in writing.

We take care to provide the highest standards of service. However, in the event that you should have a complaint, please contact The Complaints Officer on 0131 557 6677 or in writing to the address given at the top of this agreement.

Complaints Procedure
The firm maintains an internal written complaints procedure. A hand-out summarising this process is available on request. If you have a complaint (whether oral or written) about the firm or a service it has provided then this should first be directed to our compliance officer or a director at our office address. We promise to deal with your complaint in a fair and objective manner. Our information about our services document has more information; in particular it explains the limits and access rights you may have to the Financial Ombudsman Service http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/
and Financial Services Compensation Scheme www.fscs.org.uk.

Your complaint will be formally acknowledged and you will be sent a copy of our formal complaints procedure. The matter will be investigated in line with our procedures and in accordance with the rules and our findings will be reported to you. If you are still unhappy with the outcome you will have the right to take any eligible complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and details of how to do so will be provided at this stage.

If you make a valid claim against the company in respect of the advice provided and we are unable to meet our liabilities in full, you may be entitled to redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme; The Financial Services Compensation Scheme provides protection against an authorised investment firm going out of business.

Compensation Limits

The amount of redress available will depend on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim.



Type of BusinessMaximum FSCS Compensation
Deposits : £75,000 per person per firm (for claims
against firms declared in default as at 31 December 2010)
100% of £75,000
Investments: £50,000 per person per firm (for claims
against firms declared in default from 1 January 2010)
100% of the first £50,000
Insurance Business: unlimited 90% of the claim with no upper limit. Compulsory
General Insurance advice and arranging: unlimited (for
business conducted on or after 14 January 2005)
90% of the claim with no upper limit. Compulsory