Bank of Russia authorises SROs to accredit investment advisory programmes

The National Association of Securities Market Participants (NAUFOR) and the self-regulatory organisation National Finance Association (NFA) have been granted by the regulator the authority to perform mandatory accreditation of programmes used to provide individual investment advice to customers.

Acting within their remit, NAUFOR and NFA will make decisions on programme accreditation and accreditation refusal or revocation should such accredited programmes not correspond to their specified operation parameters or inaccurate information be revealed in the documents submitted for accreditation.

Applicants for programme accreditation may submit documents to self-regulatory organisations as set forth by the Bank of Russia's Ordinance.

At the end of 2018, a law on investment advisers came into force. According to this law, investment advisory activities can only be conducted by legal entities and individual entrepreneurs complying with certain criteria and, more importantly, included in the Bank of Russia's special register. Investment advisers using autoadvisory or autofollow programmes for consulting services must have these programmes accredited.