A financial services website has to do two things that pull against each other: persuade somebody to get in touch, and stay within rules about how you may describe what you do. Handled badly, the second wins completely and you end up with a site that is careful, compliant and says nothing anybody can act on.
Get the boundary clear first
Before writing, establish what applies to you. The rules on financial promotions differ by permission, product and audience, and they come from the regulator rather than from a web studio. We work to what your compliance adviser confirms, and treat the FCA handbook as the source. What we can do is make whatever is permitted read like it was written by a person.
Specific is usually still allowed
Firms often assume compliance requires vagueness. Usually the requirement is that communications are fair, clear and not misleading, which is an argument for being more specific rather than less. Naming the clients you serve, describing your process, and explaining how you charge are rarely the parts that cause a problem. Claims about outcomes and returns are.
Risk warnings that are actually read
Where a warning is required, putting it in tiny grey text at the bottom satisfies nobody, least of all a regulator looking at prominence. Keep it near the claim it qualifies, in the same size text as everything else. It also reads as confidence rather than as something being hidden.
Build sign-off into the process
The pattern that works is simple: draft, compliance review, then build. The version that fails is a finished site sent for sign-off the week before launch, which produces a scramble and copy rewritten by committee into something nobody would read. Treat compliance as a step in the schedule and it costs a few days; treat it as a formality at the end and it costs the launch.
The wider site structure for firms in this sector is in website design for accountants.
The short version. Confirm what applies to you before writing, be specific about who you help and how you work, keep required warnings prominent and plain, and put compliance review in the middle of the process rather than at the end.
More on the sector on our page for financial services.
