Its no secret that the watchdogs at the FCA are gunning for financial advisers that give unsuitable or even negligent financial advice over the transfer of Final Salary Pensions. Defined benefits pensions are considered to be rare, valuable and in most case, well worth keeping! But over the past few years, many financial advisers threw…
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…
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…
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…
The Financial Conduct Authority, which both sets and enforces the rules for companies working in the financial services sector, is set to question around 3,000 firms about pension transfer risks, following suspicious surges in transfer activity over the past few years. In many cases, people may have been given negligent financial advice that led them…
The FCA has written out to financial advisers who have permissions to conduct final salary pension transfers to demand information about the ongoing costs of the new pension arrangements being paid by their clients. Final Salary pension transfers are rarely considered suitable under the FCA’s rules, because of the amount of risk moving away from…
SIPP administrators are being quizzed by the watchdogs and rule-makers at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over the plans they have in place should they become insolvent, and over their general resilience. The Regulator wrote out to SIPP providers following a ‘Dear CEO‘ letter the previous week, to ask them questions about their professional indemnity…
The UK regulator for the financial services sector – the FCA – is looking at how A.I and ‘machine learning’ may be used in the future to help detect financial advisers who mis-sell products, such as pensions and mortgages. The FCA’s Richard Monk, who is currently acting director of strategy, announced at a conference that…
Greyfriars Asset Management LLP, a firm that dealt with both SIPP pensions and Discretionary Fund Management (DFM), has gone into administration. A note on the official public record (The Gazette) said that Greyfriars have appointed administrators from Smith & Williamson LLP on the 23rd of October 2018. What does “going into administration” mean? Going into administration…
The Financial Conduct Authority, who are in charge of all regulated financial advisers in the country, have launched an investigation into 33 financial advisers who are suspected of giving poor advice. SIPP pensions, in particular may be on the agenda, as the amount of compensation paid out over mis-sold SIPPs increased again to £112million from…