A review of pension transfer advice conducted by the top-dogs at the Financial Conduct Authority has revealed how a string of common advice failures from some financial advisers may be putting retirements at risk. The FCA looked into 45 financial advice companies that were giving people pension advice over valuable final salary pensions, and other…
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Lighthouse Advisory Services – a principal IFA that has operated with several Appointed Representatives, has been told to pay compensation to a client by the Financial Ombudsman, because it refused to sign paperwork declaring that it gave financial advice. In a recently published financial ombudsman case, Mr B was given advise to transfer his two…
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The regulators for the UK’s financial services, the Financial Conduct Authority, is considering extending the scope of the ban on the marketing of Contracts for Differences to retail investors, due to the huge risk they often present. What are CFDs? Contracts For Difference (CFDs) are often sold as an “investment”. In reality, they are a…
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Independent Portfolio Managers – a mini-bond manager based in London, has been declared in default by the FSCS, meaning that as many as 2000 former clients may be able to make claims for compensation. The firm, which was incorporated back in 1996, when into liquidation in November 2018, and was previously regulated by the Financial…
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Those who have transferred their final salary pensions may want to re-examine the advice they received, as the FCA promises ‘serious consequences’ for firms after an investigation revealed less than 50% of advice appeared to be suitable. Transfers of final salary pensions should never be undertaken lightly because of the rare and valuable benefits being…
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Financial news publication, Citywire, has published an article chronicling the FSCS’s 2018 story, including focuses on the SIPP pension mis-selling scandal and the final salary pension transfer problem. What is the FSCS? The Financial Services Compensation Scheme is the lifeboat fund for the financial services industry in the UK. Different to the FCA (which makes…
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Anti-pension scam campaign starting to pay off? New figures show that ScamSmart, the FCA’s anti-scam division set up to help people identify and avoid money scams, has recorded a 462% increase in pension scam enquiries since their summer advertising campaign. The website, which was previously recording around 562 daily visits, later recorded an average of…
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The Financial Conduct Authority has told as many as 9 financial advisers that they can no-longer give advice to transfer financial salary pensions and other defined benefits, or in some cases to limit this activity. The FCA is the financial services regulator, and sets the standards for conduct across the industry for things like pension…
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The FCA has launched a training program designed to help staff stop individuals and companies considered to be ‘harmful’ from starting up their old tricks again. Many people in the financial services industry are concerned with how some firms appear to have given negligent financial advice ‘en masse’ and then placed their company into liquidation…
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The collapse of 3 SIPP pension providers, Brooklands Trustees, Montpelier Pension Administration Services and Stadia Trustees, has so far cost the FSCS £17 million in compensation. Because the three firms stopped trading and disintegrated, it meant that the FSCS had to step in, declaring the firms in default, which meant that it would consider paying…
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