Easing the advice requirements for transfers of guaranteed pensions to overseas schemes “could have been a recipe for disaster”, AJ Bell senior analyst Tom Selby said of the UK Government’s decision not to scrap the requirement to take financial advice.
A damning report from the UK’s Work and Pensions Committee has blasted the actions of some financial advisers who acted like “vultures”, and who “bamboozled” British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) members, raising questions about how this could happen in a post-RDR world?
Aegon’s “arduous” pension transfer process is creating barriers to stop customers transferring out and risks them becoming immune to red flags and falling victim to scams, the chief executive of PensionBee wrote in an open letter to her Aegon counterpart.
A petition has been set up to get the UK Government to scrap the “unfair” and “discriminatory” 25% charge on qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme (Qrops) transfers.
The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (Cisi) level 6 certificate in pension transfers and planning advice has been officially approved by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Advisers are mulling the implications of FCA plans to incorporate the term ‘insistent client’ into its handbook guidance. The regulator has outlined what it sees as best practice – a move that could see advisers producing two suitability reports, with a particular focus on pension transfer advice.
As part of its crackdown on pension scams, HM Treasury has confirmed that it will limit the statutory right to transfer but will extend the proposed criteria to include qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes (Qrops).
The FCA has proposed overhauling the rules for advising on DB to DC pension transfers. Rob Morris, partner at RPC, looks at the risks these changes create for financial advisers and their insurers.
The UK financial services regulator has “failed to deliver a working model” for overseas pension transfers, says industry expert Bethell Codrington, amid concerns the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) planned overhaul leaves products such as Qrops “open to mis-selling”.
UK advice firm Heather Dunne IFA (HDIFA) has been ordered by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to stop proving advice on pension transfers making it the latest in a string of firms to be sanctioned under an industry-wide crackdown.
A UK firm which writes third party Qrops transfer reports has suspended its defined benefit pension transfer business following an FCA audit.
There are exciting new market opportunities for the taking, two years after the UK pension freedoms were introduced that raised customer awareness of the need for pension planning, says Matt Ward, communications director at AKG Financial Analytics
