A conservative client lost 22% on a structured note sold by your predecessor and has complained. How do you assess the suitability record, what might the firm owe her, and what do you say in the meeting?

The record shows a clear mismatch, so the complaint goes to a formal review, and the firm may owe her between Rs 11 and Rs 22 lakh. A Conservative retiree seeking capital preservation was sold a High-risk note with principal at risk, and nothing records why. Putting her where a suitable product at an illustrative 7% would have left her costs about Rs 22.3 lakh. In the meeting, listen, acknowledge, explain the process, and promise nothing you cannot deliver.

Put the two documents side by side and read them as the firm would have at the time, not with hindsight. A doctor who prescribes a strong drug to a patient whose chart says allergic is judged on the chart, not on whether the patient happened to react. Suitability is judged from the record at the time of sale: what the firm knew about the client, what it knew about the product, and whether it recorded a reason for any gap. Here the profile says Conservative, capital preservation, cannot tolerate loss; the product sheet says principal at risk, complex, High. There is no note of a discussion and no signed acknowledgement of the mismatch.

No, and saying so early saves a bad conversation. A signature shows the document was handed over. The duty to sell only what suits the client sits with the firm, and a client's signature does not transfer it back to her. Frameworks for distributors and advisers in India, set by SEBI and, for banks, by the RBI, require firms to assess suitability or appropriateness for complex products and keep records; confirm which rules applied to this sale and the firm's own policy, because that is what the review will test.

Redress aims to put the client where she would have been if she had been advised properly. If a suitable alternative, say a deposit or a conservative debt fund at an illustrative 7%, would have turned Rs 50 lakh into Rs 61.25 lakh over three years, the gap to the Rs 39 lakh she received is about Rs 22.3 lakh. A narrower basis, returning only the capital lost, is Rs 11 lakh. The firm's compliance review, not you in the meeting, decides the basis; you make sure the review happens quickly and that she understands the route beyond it, including the regulator's complaint channels if she is not satisfied.

Open by listening, all the way through, and write down what she says. Then acknowledge the loss and how it feels without defending your predecessor or blaming him. Say what will happen next, by when, and who decides: a formal review of the sale against her profile, with a written answer by a date you commit to. Do not promise an amount, do not admit liability on the firm's behalf before the review, and do not suggest she should have read the term sheet more carefully. Close by checking her current portfolio, the note is 16.7% of her wealth and she may now need that money in something that fits her profile, and escalate the file to compliance the same day.

Say the limit to yourself, not to her: you do not yet know whether a conversation took place that nobody recorded. The review will ask your predecessor. The meeting's job is to keep her trust while that happens.