What is APCIMS?
As always, information is the key to successfully making the best use of these opportunities.
Perhaps you know exactly what you want to do and can work through an efficient dealing-only service, but virtually all investors will need genuinely unbiased and professional advice from a truly independent and qualified adviser to make the most of their investments.
And this is where APCIMS members come in.
All of our members are highly professional investment advisers, trained and regulated to the highest standards and committed to providing the full range of services to private investors. Above all they are approachable, friendly and easily accessible, wherever you live.
The Association was formed in 1990 to represent the interests of stockbroking firms which specialised in providing services for individual investors, or private clients as they are often known. The need for APCIMS arose largely because of the changes in the London Stock Exchange some 10 years ago, known collectively as the Big Bang.
Although more than half of Stock Exchange transactions were (and still are) for private investors, their interests were increasingly being overlooked. With so much change in the operation of the Stock Exchange in prospect, the need for an effective trade association to balance the powerful influence of the major investing institutions became pressing.
In 1994, our membership was extended to include those investment managers who, like stockbrokers, deal in, advise on, or manage direct investment in individual securities for personal and other non-institutional investors. And in 2002, the members of the European Association of Securities Dealers voted to merge into APCIMS. This expansion to include other organisations providing comparable services has increased our strength and our standing. Although, like all groups, APCIMS was established to represent the interests of its members, it also has a clear responsibility to look after the best interests of those members' private clients.
There is a deep commitment to helping investors and, through APCIMS, our members and the private clients they serve are individually and collectively stronger and better represented than ever before.
Since its launch, APCIMS has grown rapidly and now represents well over 90 per cent of private client stockbrokers and the vast majority of private client investment managers. Between them our members operate more than 400 offices throughout the UK and Ireland.
The Association is recognised by H M Government and all the leading industry authorities (including the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange and the Financial Services Authority) and is consulted and involved in all the issues of the day where private clients are concerned.