Should I expect a financial adviser to keep my finances confidential?

Malthusian

If a married couple wants to be treated separately and not have each person's finances disclosed to the other, they must make that absolutely clear to the adviser up front.

As Linton says, the adviser is limited in his ability to do his job if he can't discuss the full extent of someone's joint assets with themselves.

Joint accounts are not relevant. A bank does not need to see what is in someone's single-name account to administer the joint one. An adviser however does need to know the full extent of someone's assets to give correct advice. If they don't it must be documented and caveated in case the advice turns out to be sub-optimal because of something the adviser wasn't able to discuss with one half of the couple.

It is not unheard of for married clients to keep their finances separate, so advisers should be perfectly capable of handling it, but they can't handle it if you don't tell them that's what you're doing.

MaxiRobriguez

Even if the IFA takes into account partner's earnings and assets, they still shouldn't give the end report to both of them because the client is just one of them.

I think it's bad practice but unlikely to go as far as GDPR as the personal data is known in advance by both parties so there's no breach.

DrSyn

1. How long have you both been with this adviser?

2. Is this the first time this has occurred with this adviser?

3. Have you ever told this adviser not to share your financial affairs with your husband?

4. Has your husband ever told this adviser at not to share his financial affairs with your?

5. Have you & your husband ever discuss your financial affairs in the presence of this financial adviser?

6. Has this upset you enough to employ a different adviser?

Mistral001

If you are married, you each share half of the total income. So I would have thought that legally you cannot hide your income from your spouse.

Malthusian

Mistral001 wrote: »

If you are married, you each share half of the total income. So I would have thought that legally you cannot hide your income from your spouse.

Sure you can. Unless you're divorcing.

If I'm not divorcing from my spouse then I can stuff millions of pounds under the floorboards like Walter White if I feel like it. It's a nasty thing to do but it's not breaking any laws.

At least that was my first instinct, but on thinking about it again, the new "coercive control" laws mean that you would be well-advised to take legal advice before you embark on being a bas*ard. There has never been any legal duty to tell your spouse everything about your life (disclosure requirements during divorce being a separate matter), but stuffing money under the floorboards might now be viewed as "financial abuse".

HappyHarry

I have more than one set of married clients who keep their finances separate.

Initially, I dealt with one of each of the couples, and they then recommended me to their spouse. I have never held a joint meeting with any of the couples.

If I ever sent any of these couples a joint statement, I would expect to receive a complaint.

OP, yes, I think this is a breach. You should decide if you want to raise a formal complaint, and if so, you should consider whether or not either of you wish to keep the adviser.

steampowered

To be honest, where you have both halves of a married couple seeing an IFA, I would have assumed it is OK to share the information between them.

When you are married, your finances are relevant to your spouse's. You presumably have shared expenses and shared savings goals.

There is also relevance to e.g. tax allowances - it is very common for assets to be put in the name of one spouse rather than another for tax reasons, or to use up both spouses' ISA allowances.

If you want your finances kept totally separate and don't want information shared, you should let the IFA know. I think it is a bit unfair to be upset at the IFA if you didn't make this clear up front.

Simby

I think it’s a breech , Couples can have joint finances and totally separate finances.

There is no obligation to tell your spouse about your finances , or to have joint account.

There is no implication the spouse knew about the others investments and now the adviser has breached this and the spouse knows information they should not have had.

I would be furious, it is your choice how much you disclose to your other half not your financial advisors.

It’s perfectly normal to have joint and separate account and not uncommon for one spouse to use some of their personal money for savings..

I would be curious to understand why it is not a breech of gdpr.

SonOf

I would be curious to understand why it is not a breech of gdpr.

We are lacking a fair bit of info. It could be a breach if the OP made it clear that their finances were not to be discussed with each other. It may not be a breach if the adviser didn't know.

NoMore

well if you get divorced, both parties would have to declare all their financials to each other in order to get a fair financial settlement worked out.