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Financial websites must be "fair, clear and not misleading"

The Financial Services Authority is calling for all financial promotional websites to be fair to customers and not contain any misleading information.

This follows a view of 133 visits to 77 company websites, which show that while three-quarters met the required standards, it found that a "significant minority" failed to present information clearly.

Some websites were considered difficult for consumers to navigate and failed to highlight key information.

The current survey is the third of its kind conducted by the FSA following similar reviews in 2005 and 2006.

Standards have improved since then and the FSA is keen to ensure full compliance before the next survey in March 2008.

Dan Waters, Director of Retail Policy and Themes at the FSA, said:

"Although many firms' website-based promotions are meeting our requirements, we expect the senior management of all regulated firms to ensure their customers are treated fairly – and we will be looking at promotional websites again early next year to make sure that firms have taken our findings on board and are taking website design seriously."