Find the gaps in your website and client documents – before a client or the regulator does
A fixed-price check of your financial advice firm's website and client documents against New Zealand's disclosure, conduct and privacy rules. You get a plain tick-box report: what's fine, what isn't, and how to fix it.
Demo: payments aren't connected yet, so no money is taken. Everything else is the real thing.
Checked against the law itself
Every finding names the provision of the law it relates to, so you can see exactly why it was raised.
A person checks every report
Compleye, our review system, does the reading. One of our people checks the report before you see it.
Fixed price, no membership
One payment. No subscription, nothing to install, and you can add documents over a few days.
Private to your firm
Your documents and your report stay inside Compliance. You reach them through your own private link or login.
How it works
We read your website ourselves, so there's nothing to send us from it.
You send us your documents through your private link.
We check your website and documents against the law, one check at a time. The checks are listed below.
We check the report ourselves before you see it. It then appears on the same page, usually within 2 working days of sending your documents, and we email you when it's ready.
How the review is done
1The home page, and the pages and documents it links to about disclosure, complaints, fees and privacy.
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What's in your report
The report is a tick-box list: "Yes – it's fine", "No – it's not fine" or "Needs looking at" for each check, with the law it relates to and a suggested fix.
A summary at the top: how many checks are fine, how many are not, and how many need looking at.
What to fix first: every check that is not fine, with its fix, in one short list.
Every check, one by one, marked "Yes – it's fine", "No – it's not fine", "Needs looking at" or "Not applicable".
What we found, in plain words, with the words from your own website or documents that it rests on.
The law each check rests on, quoted in its own words, with its section or clause.
A suggested fix for anything that is not fine or needs looking at.
A list of every page and document we read, and anything we couldn't read.
What the review doesn't cover.
You read it on your private page and can download it as a Word document. See a full sample report.
An example of one finding (illustration only – not a real firm)
Disclosure is easy to find from the home page
No – it's not fine
What we foundThe home page has no link to the disclosure information. It can only be reached from the "About us" page.
The lawFinancial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, regulation 229B(4)
Suggested fixPut a clear "Disclosure" link in the home page's main menu or footer.
It is not legal advice, not an audit and not a guarantee.
The documents we ask for
We will ask for a number of documents, including but not limited to:
your public disclosure statement
your scope of service document, as last sent to a client (one for each adviser if you can – at least two advisers' if you have more than one, so we can compare them)
the last email or letter to a client that carried your privacy statement (saved as a PDF or Word file), or your latest privacy statement
any advice template you use
We may ask for other documents on the page. If you don't have one of them, say so there. PDF, Word (.docx) or text, up to 20 MB each.
Where a document went to a client, please black out the client's name and details before you send it. We also take out email addresses and phone numbers before the review reads your documents.
The 33 checks we run
Every review runs all of them. For each one: what we look for, where we look, and the law it rests on.
What your website tells the public (15 checks)
Public disclosure information is on the website
What we look for: The website has the provider's public disclosure information (a disclosure page, section or downloadable disclosure document) that covers the Schedule 21A clause 4 items.
What we look for: The disclosure information, or a link to it, is displayed prominently on the home page or in a section the home page links to prominently, so the public can find it easily.
Where we look: Your website
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, regulation 229B(4)
The provider's own name and contact details
What we look for: The disclosure information includes the financial advice provider's own name and contact details and is clearly identified as the provider's information.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, regulation 229C(5)
Licence status
What we look for: A statement of the provider's licence status: holds a financial advice provider licence, is an authorised body under another provider's licence (naming that licensee), or is exempt.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: If advice is only about products from particular product providers, a statement saying so, with their names or an identifying description.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: Any commissions or other incentives the provider or its advisers may receive, when they apply, and the steps taken to manage the conflicts they create.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: That a free, independent dispute resolution service is available, the name of the provider's scheme and the scheme's contact details.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, Schedule 21A clause 4(1)(k); Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 11; Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 48
The duties statement
What we look for: A statement that the provider and anyone advising on its behalf is bound by the duties in sections 431I, 431K, 431L and 431M of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, or words to the same effect.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: The disclosure information is clear, concise and effective, easily readable, and free of charge (not behind a login, form or payment).
Where we look: Your website
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, regulation 229H
Whether your website and documents say the same thing (7 checks)
Firm name and FSP number are the same everywhere
What we look for: The provider's name (legal and trading) and FSP number are the same on the website and in every document supplied, and agree with the firm details given for this review.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014, regulation 229C(5); Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 12; Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 41; Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, section 431P; Fair Trading Act 1986, section 13
Licence holder is the same everywhere
What we look for: The licence holder (or the licensee, for an authorised body) is the same on the website and in every document supplied, and agrees with the firm details given for this review.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: People the website presents as advisers are described consistently with the documents supplied, and nobody is described as giving financial advice who the documents show is not an adviser.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, section 431F; Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, section 431Q; Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 12; Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008, section 41; Fair Trading Act 1986, section 13
Documents are current
What we look for: The documents supplied and linked from the website are current versions: dated or versioned, not naming a superseded entity, licence or scheme, and the website does not link to an older version than the one supplied.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
What we look for: A statement that the adviser is a financial adviser, that they advise on behalf of the provider, and the adviser's name or a way to identify them.
What we look for: Any fees, expenses or other amounts payable: when they apply, the amount or how it is worked out (with an estimate), and the payment terms.
What we look for: For each commission or incentive: when it is given, who gives and receives it, its amount or how it is worked out, and how the conflict is managed.
What we look for: The website has a privacy statement or policy that is easy to find, especially where it collects personal information (forms, calculators, applications).
Where we look: Your website
The law: Privacy Act 2020, information privacy principle 3
What the privacy statement tells people
What we look for: The privacy statement says who collects the information, why, who it may be shared with, and that people can access and correct it.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Privacy Act 2020, information privacy principle 3(1); Privacy Act 2020, information privacy principle 6; Privacy Act 2020, information privacy principle 7
Information collected from others
What we look for: The privacy statement covers personal information collected from someone other than the person themselves and what people are told when that happens.
Where we look: Your website and the documents you send us
The law: Privacy Act 2020, information privacy principle 3A
What it can cost when things aren't right
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) licenses and monitors financial advice providers. This is what the law allows when a provider, or an adviser, doesn't meet the rules. These are the outer limits, not what happens every time.
The licence
The FMA can censure a provider, give it a direction, and cancel its licence. It has done all three to financial advice providers. Without a licence (its own, or cover under another firm's) a provider generally can't give regulated financial advice to retail clients.
Penalties from a court
For most breaches of the advice duties a court can order a penalty of up to $200,000 for an individual or $600,000 for a company. For false or misleading statements or omissions in disclosure information the limit is higher: up to $1 million for an individual or $5 million for a company, or three times the gain made or loss caused, whichever is greater.
Paying clients back
A court can order a provider to compensate clients, and a dispute resolution scheme can award a client compensation too.
Directors and managers
It isn't only the company. Anyone knowingly involved in a provider's breach, a director or senior manager included, can be held personally liable. The Act also keeps open criminal liability for a false or misleading statement in disclosure information.
An adviser's own registration
The Financial Advisers Disciplinary Committee can censure an adviser, require training, put conditions on their advice and fine them up to $10,000. An adviser's registration can be suspended or ended.
Reputation
The FMA's censures and licence cancellations are public. It publishes them, naming the firm, where clients and referrers can find them.
A review can't promise that none of this happens. It shows you what a careful reader of your website and documents would find, and how to fix it, before anyone else points it out.
The advice you give. We don't look at client files or advice records, or at whether any advice was suitable.
How your business runs: your processes, record keeping, training, supervision, or how complaints are handled in practice.
Other laws, such as anti-money laundering, responsible lending, tax and employment.
Anything we can't see: pages behind a login, pages your home page and site map don't lead to, social media, and documents you didn't send us.
The regulator's records. We compare what your website and documents say with each other and with the law. We don't check them against the Financial Service Providers Register unless the report says we did.
Anything that changed after the day we read your website and documents.
The review looks for gaps. It isn't a sign-off: it isn't legal advice, an audit or a guarantee.
Questions
Is this an audit or legal advice?
No. It is a quick look at your website and documents against the law. It is not legal advice, not an audit and not a guarantee.
Who is it for?
New Zealand financial advice providers. It's for the firm, not each adviser.
How long does it take?
Sending your documents takes a few minutes, and you can come back to add more. Your report is usually ready within 2 working days of sending them.
What if we don't have one of the documents?
Tell us on your page. We review what you have, and the report says what wasn't supplied.
Who sees our documents?
Our staff and Compleye, our review system, which uses outside services to do the reading – our privacy page says how. They are not shared with any other firm or site, and they are never published.
What happens after the report?
You decide what to fix. If you'd like help, reply to our email and we can introduce a compliance specialist.
Order your review – $249 + GST
One-off. No membership needed. Straight after you order we email your private link for sending us your documents.
