Financial plan redaction is the removal of personal data from a planning document. Where the plan recommends a retail investment, the firm must issue a suitability report under FCA COBS 9A.3 or COBS 9.4, and the advice itself is a regulated activity under art. 53 of the Regulated Activities Order 2001. The FCA Consumer Duty — Principle 12 and PRIN 2A, in force for open products since 31 July 2023 — sets the standard for how the plan is written and explained. Gifting sections turn on IHTA 1984 s.3A, where a potentially exempt transfer falls out of account after seven years. anonym.plus marks each identifier on your device, so the strategy reads the same while the household goes.
When this applies
A plan ties goals, net worth, protection needs and a gifting timetable to one named family. A peer reviewer, a paraplanning team or a compliance sample needs the modelling and the reasoning, not the household. You trim the identity before the file circulates; the issued suitability report stays on the client file.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Open the plan in anonym.plus on your device.
- Local OCR reads the scanned appendix and cash-flow pages.
- The tool flags names, balances, health references and contacts.
- Keep the goal headings, assumptions and modelling output intact.
- Swap or black out the marked items.
- Save the clean copy locally.
What you need to provide
- The planning file (PDF, DOCX, or scan).
- An operator (Replace keeps the prose readable).
- Optional allow-list for goal headings and assumption labels.
PII & financial identifiers detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | the Reynolds household → [HOUSEHOLD] |
| Money | MONEY | net worth £3.2M → [VALUE] |
| Financial | UK_BANK_NUMBER | acct 7782 → [ACCOUNT] |
| Identifiers | UK_NINO | QQ 60 22 44 A → [NINO] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | retire 2041 → [DATE] |
| Contact | EMAIL_ADDRESS | reynolds@example.co.uk → [EMAIL] |
Compliance achieved
- Where the plan recommends a retail investment, the firm issues a suitability report under FCA COBS 9A.3 / COBS 9.4; the redacted working copy is a review artefact and does not stand in for that report.
- Advising on the merits of an investment is a regulated activity under RAO 2001 art. 53, so the plan is a permission-critical record — redact a copy, keep the original.
- The FCA Consumer Duty (Principle 12 and PRIN 2A, in force for open products since 31 July 2023) sets the standard for consumer understanding; stripping identities never justifies stripping the explanation.
- Gifting sections turn on IHTA 1984 s.3A, where a potentially exempt transfer drops out of account after seven years; care and protection sections may hold health data under UK GDPR Art. 9(1).
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Limitations & cautions
A net-worth figure with a town and a retirement year can identify a household with no name attached. The tool flags named items, not inference. It also cannot tell you whether the plan meets the Consumer Duty. Read the narrative sections for indirect clues before you share it.
Frequently asked questions
Is a financial plan a suitability report?
Not automatically. Where the plan leads to a personal recommendation on a retail investment, COBS 9A.3 or COBS 9.4 requires a suitability report explaining why the recommendation is suitable. A redacted plan is a working copy and does not replace that report.
Will the strategy survive the pass?
Yes. Allow-list the goal headings, assumptions and modelling labels. Only personal identifiers are marked, so the cash-flow logic and the reasoning still read.
Is the plan sent anywhere?
No. Everything runs locally with no cloud step, so the document and its figures stay on your device.