Many money websites are 'unclear'

The FSA said it would continue to monitor substandard websites

One out of every four promotional websites for financial services firms are not fair or clear enough, the industry watchdog has warned.

A quarter of 77 sites reviewed "failed to present information in a fair, clear and not misleading way", the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said.

According to the FSA, the problems lay with poor navigation and a failure to highlight important information.

The FSA said that consumers may make purchases without the necessary advice.

"For many people the internet is the channel of choice for shopping around for financial products," said Dan Waters of the FSA.

"However, it can expose consumers to high risk as they are able to make instant purchases without advice.

"This is why it is so important that firms' websites are fair, clear and not misleading," he added.

Improvement

The FSA, the UK's main financial regulator, said the situation had improved since previous reviews in 2005 and 2006.

In its latest study, three-quarters of financial websites were up to standard.

But Mr Waters warned that the FSA would conduct another review next year and that if any firm's promotional websites were still sub-standard it would take action against them.

The regulator's latest review looked at websites of companies who spent most on internet advertising, which featured strongly in online searches or which advertised high-risk policies.

One problem was that a significant minority of sites displayed information that was out of date or wrong because the site had not been kept up to date properly.

Among the other problems discovered were

• Advantages and disadvantages of products not being given the same amount of weight and prominence on the same web page.
• Headline claims not being clearly substantiated.
• Firms not taking into account the different sized browsers of consumers, forcing them to scroll down to read the information.