Business Email for a Financial Advisor: Records, Compliance and Trust

An advisor's email is a regulated record and a target at the same time. Most regulators require you to keep client communications for years and produce them on request; most criminals who go after small advisory firms do it by reading an inbox and then asking a client to move money. A small firm does not need an archiving platform to meet both, but it does need its own domain, a few deliberate addresses, and two rules that never bend.

Quick answer

Create clients@, compliance@, scheduling@ and hello@ on your own domain, plus name@ for each advisor. Keep every mailbox, never delete client threads, export the mailboxes once a year to a second location, and never send or accept instructions to move money by email alone. Two-factor authentication on every mailbox is not optional.

The addresses to create

• clients@yourfirm.com for general client correspondence that is not tied to one advisor: documents received, address changes, requests for statements. A group with the advisors and the office.
• compliance@yourfirm.com as the address that receives copies of anything that must be on file: new client agreements, suitability letters, complaints. A mailbox, not a group, so there is one archive the regulator can be shown.
• scheduling@yourfirm.com for review meetings and the calendar tool's replies. A group with the office and the advisors.
• hello@yourfirm.com as the public address on the website and the regulator's register entry.
• name@yourfirm.com for each advisor and each paraplanner. Client emails come from a named, regulated person.

Two rules that never bend

1. No money moves on email alone. A client's instruction to withdraw, transfer or change bank details is confirmed by a phone call to a number already on file, every time, and the call is noted in the thread. Say so in your client agreement and in the signature on every mailbox, so a client who receives a fake instruction from "you" knows it is fake.
2. No account numbers, statements or identity documents in plain email. Use the platform's secure messaging or a client portal for documents; use email to say "a document is waiting for you". When a client sends a statement anyway, acknowledge it, move it to the client file, and delete it from the thread.

Keeping the record

Rules vary by country and by whether you are an adviser, a planner or a broker, but the pattern is the same: keep business communications for a set number of years, be able to find them, and be able to show they are complete. On a small scale: never delete a client mailbox, copy compliance@ on anything that forms part of advice, export every mailbox over IMAP once a year to an encrypted drive using the backup guide, and write the retention period into a one-page policy using the retention guide. When an advisor leaves, their mailbox is exported and kept, not deleted.

Set it up in an afternoon

1. Add your domain in OquMail and paste the MX, SPF and DKIM records at your registrar. The DNS checklist has the exact values.
2. Create compliance@ and each advisor's name@ first, then a name@ mailbox for each person who writes to clients.
3. Create the shared addresses as groups and add the right people as members. Each member gets a copy in their own mailbox, so nothing waits on one person.
4. Set a signature on every mailbox in webmail: name, role, phone, and any licence or registration number your field requires.
5. Put the new addresses on the website, the booking or contact page, the social profiles and the email signatures, then stop giving out the personal ones.
6. Turn on two-factor authentication for every mailbox, not just the owner's. Client data is what makes your inbox worth stealing.

Mistakes specific to the trade

• Advising from a personal address. Several regulators have fined firms for exactly this, because the record cannot be produced.
• Turning off two-factor authentication because it is inconvenient on a phone. The 2FA guide takes ten minutes; a drained client account takes a career.
• Letting the calendar tool send meeting invitations from a no-reply address, so a client's "can we move it?" reaches nobody.
• Mass newsletters from the advisor's own mailbox with clients in Cc. Use one message per client or a newsletter tool, and keep the client list private.
• Skipping the yearly check. The annual security audit is an hour, once a year.

Common questions

Is a free email service compliant?

Compliance is about what you do, not what you pay. You need your own domain, a mailbox per regulated person, a retained archive, access controls and two-factor authentication. OquMail's free plan provides the domain, the mailboxes, the storage and 2FA; the retention policy and the yearly export are your process.

Can clients email me documents?

They will, whatever you say. Make the secure channel the easy one: a portal link in every signature, and a standard reply when a document arrives by email that thanks them, confirms it is filed, and asks them to use the portal next time.

What goes in the signature?

Name, role, the firm's name and registration number, the regulator's register wording your country requires, the phone number, and the one line about never changing bank details or taking instructions by email alone.