Financial advisors digitise docs to please FSA

Independent financial advisor group Independent Financial Services (IFS) has signed a deal to implement scanners in 100 offices, to keep client documents safe in light of FSA regulation.

The Kodak scanners provided by BMI Solutions will be used to store 58,000 client documents relating to investments, pensions and mortgages.

The scanners will also enable the company to manage documentation centrally through a bespoke system.

The decision to digitise the company's paperwork was in part driven by FSA regulation requiring all documentation concerning financial advice to be stored for an indefinite period of time. According to IFS chairman Barry Wycherley, the paper-based system meant files could potentially be damaged or lost, leaving the company liable to claims if it couldn't prove what advice its staff had given to clients.

He said in a statement: "[Independent financial advisors] produce tonnes of documents from the first fact-finding stage where clients' personal financial circumstances are assessed and records, to applications, ongoing evaluations and then management of commission statements. The business was swamped with paper and deploying scanners and in future a group-wide electronic document management system will allow us to streamline this."

The scanners cost £30,000.