Compliance experts have warned that brokers may be deluding themselves over their level of compliance with the FSA's rules on client money.
The warnings comes as a survey of brokers by Insurance Times in association with Premium Credit found the majority of brokers thought they were compliant with the client money rules.
Eighty one percent of respondents said their compliance level was good or very good, while only 5% believed it was poor or worse.
But last week, the FSA said it was to conduct a large-scale review of brokers' compliance with the client money rules after initial studies found a "worrying" level of non-compliance.
Biba regulation and compliance manager Steve White warned that brokers might not understand the client money rules as well as they thought they did. "The rules are misunder-stood. They are complex and written in legal language."
He called on brokers to read the recent FSA guide on client money rules.
Accountancy CLB Littlejohn Frazer said its own audits of brokers had found similar issues to that discovered by the FSA.
The FSA has published the latest programme of its free roadshows and surgeries to help small firms understand key regulatory issues. They are at: Bournemouth, 23 May; Peterborough, 24 May; Oxford, 16 and 17 May; Aberdeen, 20 and 21 June; Darlington, 18 and 19 July.
