Financial services content has a unique problem: it has to survive two reviewers — the compliance officer and the prospective client — whose criteria for “good” are essentially opposite. Compliance wants caveats, qualifications, regulatory boilerplate. Clients want clarity, confidence, plain English. The default outcome is content that satisfies one and fails the other, usually compliance wins and the content ranks for nothing useful.
There’s a model that satisfies both. Most FCA-regulated firms don’t use it.
Why the default fails
Most regulated firms put compliance review at the end of the writing process. A writer drafts something useful and clear. Compliance reviews it and adds caveats, removes specific claims, neutralises tone. The published version is technically clean and commercially unreadable.
The other version of this failure: writers learn what compliance will redline, and start self-censoring upfront. The content gets vague before it’s even drafted.
The model that works
Bring compliance in at the brief stage, not the review stage. A short upfront agreement: here’s what we want to say, here’s the regulatory frame it has to sit inside, here’s the named adviser whose work backs it up. The writer then drafts knowing the boundaries. The review at the end becomes a sanity check rather than a rewrite.
The other half is naming the adviser. Person schema on the byline, links to FCA register entries, real credentials. A piece of financial content under a named, credentialled adviser carries weight the same content under “The Firm” doesn’t — with Google, with AI search systems, with the actual reader.
What gets rewarded
Specific. Sourced. Named. Plain. “In a typical drawdown scenario for clients aged X with pension assets of Y, here’s how the calculation works” ranks for the queries IFAs care about. Generic “understanding pension drawdown” articles rank for nothing the firm can sell to.
The compliance-aware version of that content is fully achievable — it just requires the firm and the writer to start the brief together.
What I see
Long pages of compliance-cleaned content that read like the prospectus and don’t answer the question the buyer asked. Or short, useful content with no named adviser, which neither ranks nor earns trust.
If your firm is in this position, the intro call is here. Or look at how I work with financial services firms.
