What COBS 4 and the Consumer Duty Require of an Adviser’s Marketing

Last Updated on September 8, 2026

Marketing in most sectors is a commercial decision. In regulated advice it is a regulated activity, and the rules are more specific and more usable than most firms treat them as being.

All rule text below was read on the FCA Handbook and FCA site on 8 September 2026.

The rule everything hangs on

COBS 4.2.1R: a firm must ensure that a communication or a financial promotion is fair, clear and not misleading. And, as part of complying with that, a firm must take into account the nature of the client.

Its scope covers communications to customers on designated investment business, communications to eligible counterparties on MiFID or insurance distribution business, financial promotions communicated by the firm, and financial promotions approved by the firm.

COBS 4.2.2G adds proportionality: the rule applies in a way that is appropriate and proportionate taking into account the means of communication, the information the communication is intended to convey, and the nature of the client.

The guidance that tells you what good looks like

COBS 4.2.4G is the practical checklist and it is short:

• Make clear when capital is at risk.
• Give balanced impressions of yield figures.
• Give sufficient information where charging structures are complex.
• Clarify unregulated matters when naming a regulator.
• Give a fair impression of product producers.

The fourth is the one that catches advice firms who also do unregulated work such as general business consultancy or non-regulated tax planning. If your website names the FCA and also sells something outside your permissions, the boundary has to be visible on the page.

The word that gets firms in trouble

COBS 4.2.5R: communications should not describe a feature as guaranteed, protected or secure unless the term is accurate and the necessary information is clearly communicated.

Protection copy is where this bites hardest, because the everyday meaning of protected and the regulatory meaning diverge, and because the words feel natural in a sentence about life cover or income protection. Search your own site for all three and read each instance against that rule.

The section 21 gateway, and when it does not apply

Under section 21 of FSMA 2000 a person cannot communicate an investment promotion unless they are authorised, or the promotion has been approved by an authorised person acting as a section 21 approver, or an exemption in the Financial Promotion Order 2005 applies. PS23/13 introduced a gateway so that only authorised firms with specific FCA permission may approve promotions for unauthorised persons.

Three exclusions matter to an advice firm, and they are the ones firms most often worry about unnecessarily. Permission is not required for:

• Approving promotions from the firm’s own appointed representatives.
• Approvals within the firm’s corporate group.
• Approving an authorised person’s own promotions.

So you do not need a special permission to publish your own marketing. You do need the gateway if you approve somebody else’s, and the obvious case is an unregulated introducer’s landing page. That is a real and common arrangement and it is worth checking whether yours is caught.

The Consumer Duty, and the word most firms have not acted on

PS22/9 was published on 27 July 2022, with implementation for open products from 31 July 2023 and closed products from 31 July 2024. The Consumer Principle is that a firm must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, supported by three cross-cutting rules: act in good faith, avoid causing foreseeable harm, and enable and support customers to pursue their financial objectives.

The outcome that lands on your website is consumer understanding. The FCA expects information that is clear, timely and accessible without jargon or misleading terms, tailored to customers’ financial literacy, and tested to confirm comprehension of key information, supporting timely and informed decisions.

Tested. That is the word. Most small firms have interpreted the Duty as a documentation exercise and never tested whether anybody understands the pages.

A cheap, legitimate version of testing

You do not need a research agency. You need three people who are not clients and not in financial services.

1. Pick your three most important pages: fees, the advice process, and the page a new client most often lands on.
2. Ask each person to read one page and then tell you, without looking back, what it would cost them and what would happen next.
3. Write down where each person hesitated, and what they got wrong.
4. Fix those specific sentences.
5. Record what you did and when. That record is your evidence.

It takes an afternoon, it satisfies the spirit of the requirement, and it will materially improve the pages. Firms that do it usually discover the fees page is the one nobody understands.

Reviews and testimonials are promotions too

A client testimonial on your website is a communication about your service, and COBS 4.2.1R applies to it. So does the general UK position that since 6 April 2025 fake and concealed incentivised reviews are a banned practice, with fines up to 10 per cent of global turnover.

The safe and effective approach is to ask about the service and the clarity rather than about returns. What was explained well, what was the process like, what did you understand afterwards that you did not before. Those are the questions a prospective client cares about anyway, and none of them creates a performance claim you would then have to substantiate.

Common questions

Does an adviser need FCA permission to publish marketing?

No, not for its own promotions. The section 21 approval gateway applies when an authorised firm approves a promotion for an unauthorised person. Permission is not required for a firm’s own promotions, for its own appointed representatives’ promotions, or within its corporate group.

What does the Consumer Duty require of an adviser website?

Under the consumer understanding outcome, information that is clear, timely and accessible without jargon or misleading terms, tailored to customers’ financial literacy, and tested to confirm comprehension of key information.

Can I use the word guaranteed?

Only where it is accurate and the necessary information is clearly communicated. COBS 4.2.5R applies the same test to protected and secure, which is why protection copy needs particular care.

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research bureau. We ask the AI engines what they recommend, then check the businesses they name against Companies House and the sector registers. Figures we publish carry the date they were checked. Companies cannot pay to appear or to rank.

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