Central Bank fines BCP €210k for some retail clients as professional investors

It’s an interesting story alright.

As I understand it, BCP mainly deal with brokers. Certain clients of those brokers had elected to be treated as “professionals” rather than “retail clients”. In order for an investment firm to allow a client to do that, the client must meet two of three criteria;

1) Portfolio >€500k
2) At least 10 trades per quarter for the last 12 months
3) Worked in a relevant financial services role for at least a year

My understanding is that the issue is not that the clients weren’t elective professionals; it’s that the categorisation process was not documented adequately and that too much of the work was outsourced to the broker (when it’s actually the investment firm’s responsibility).
 
Steven, I think the CBI are currently reviewing how brokers/financial advisers get remuneration for selling pensions policies and investment products etc
 
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