Protect your clients and your business - checklist

There are simple steps that you can include in the advice process to protect your clients and your business from financial crime. We’ve created this checklist to help you.

1. Contact each of your clients to alert them to the increased risk of fraud
   You can refer to this page on the FCA website. The page covers different types of scams and includes some helpful links to more detailed information and guidance. Ask your clients to look at the information as it will increase their awareness of fraud and help to protect them from financial crime.
   
   
2. Collate your own list of useful web links to organisations fighting fraud that you can pass to your clients
   This could include Take Five, a national campaign offering advice on how to stop fraud, Stop Scams UK, an industry-led collaboration whose members include lenders, telecoms companies and tech firms and Get Safe Online, with advice on how to avoid being scammed online.
   
   
3. When validating clients’ account details, we’d recommend a confirmation call with your client if you’re not regularly interacting with them in person
   While electronic checks can be a useful tool, they won’t show if the real client isn’t in control of the account. This is a key advantage adviser firms with personal client relationships have.
   
   
4. Be sure that transaction requests from your clients are valid and in line with what you’d expect from them
   These can include withdrawal requests or changes in personal details, such as bank details. Again, we’d recommend a quick confirmation call with your client if there’s any doubt.
   
   
5. Encourage your clients to contact their bank directly in the event of a fraud alert
   Banks actively inform customers when there’s a concern that they’re at risk of identity theft. It can be easy to dismiss these alerts as a scam, but for clarification, we’d recommend encouraging your clients who receive them to contact their bank directly via a known number or secure messaging service.
   
   
6. If you're communicating via email with a client, always double check that any documents clients send you via email are verified with them through another source e.g. telephone call
   Across the industry we’re seeing increases in fraudulent documentation – for example, fake bank statements created on websites such as bankstatements.net – double checking with your client is best practice.
   
   
7. Check all communication from us
   As you, the adviser, are a key control for us where fraudsters are attempting to remove the adviser role, please always check all communications from us, as we may be contacting you about potentially fraudulent activity.
   
   
8. Bring your clients’ attention to the rise in AI-powered voice-cloning technology
   This technology has the potential of being utilised for scamming your clients over the phone into sending money to someone they believe is a family member.
   
   
9. Make clients aware of the prevalence of ‘phishing’ scams
   Your clients need to be wary of clicking on any online ads, especially if they’re offering deals. Also, if they’re expecting a parcel delivery, it’s easier for clients to fall for scam emails and texts about missed parcels with fraudulent links to ‘track package’.
   
   
10. Your clients can help to protect themselves if they’re contacted by a suspicious email or caller
    Tell them to authenticate the caller as they would expect to be authenticated by their bank, e.g. ask the suspicious caller something they should know.

More on how to protect your clients and business from financial crime.