Criteria for Professional Financial Advisers
In order to ensure that firms of financial advisers which are listed in the SIFA Directory share solicitors’ professional culture, SIFA insists on the following pre-conditions of listing:

1. They must qualify to be classified by the Financial Services Authority as independent
2. They must be directly authorised by the Financial Services Authority
3. They must have at least one adviser qualified to the Diploma standard of the Personal Finance Authority
4. They must be either wholly or partly owned by solicitors or accountants or have their application counter-signed by a solicitor or accountant
5. They must commit to the Charter below, which requires them to account to clients for commissions received in the same terms as are required by the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct.

In addition, individual advisers must possess a qualification specific to the business specialisation by reference to which they are listed.