Fine and ban for ex-Financial network director

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned Stephen Bell, the former compliance director of network Financial, for "systemic weaknesses" in the business' compliance process, and fined him £33,800.

This follows previous enforcement action against Financial in July 2014, when the FCA publicly censured Financial for systems and controls failings and used its suspension power to ban the firms from recruiting new appointed representatives (ARs) and individual advisers (CF30s) for a period of 126 days. The recruitment ban was only lifted in January. The network model is undermined if the senior managers of the principle firm do not carry out their responsibilities Compliance failings Between 20 August 2008 and 16 January 2013, Bell was responsible for compliance systems and co...