A £1.3 million fine for one pension transfer specialist at a relatively small firm provoked a lot of debate among advisers last week.
Geoffrey Armin, of Derbyshire-based Retirement Pension Planning Services advised 422 customers, including 183 BSPS steel worker members to transfer.
Although the fine relates to the early days of pension freedoms and transfers under a different set of rules, advisers' concerns have focused on the scale and value of cases and the failure by the adviser to consider clients' post transfer retirement needs despite his qualifications.
The FCA says the advice was incompetent. Advisers may say the regulator shares the blame.
The FCA also received a total of 2,754 separate allegations of misconduct in the past 12 months, including fraud, money laundering and compliance complaints.
The data was sourced from the FCA’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-21, analysed by the think tank Parliament Street, and involved 1,046 whistle blowers.
The news may not come as much of a surprise but demonstrates the scale of the challenges facing the industry, the regulator and the public.
Much has been made by the FCA of its reorganisation and, post LCF, its intention to listen to whistle-blowers. Can it live up to this ambition?
A total 141 restricted advisers left Quilter Financial Planning in 2021, with the firm saying it has shifted focus towards adviser productivity.
Quite a tough approach in a pandemic economy.
Royal London has plans to reduce the carbon ‘intensity’ of flagship passive equity funds' ‘governed range’ by more than 10%, in a bid to embed responsible investment.
Interesting how that will be communicated to clients. We still appear to be missing regulations of direct relevance to advisers and their clients which were expected to be focus on the suitability process.
