Transferred your Final Salary pension recently? The FCA will be questioning your adviser…

The financial services regulator is concerned with dodgy DB transfer advice

Transferring a Final Salary of other type of defined benefit pension can sometimes be presented to you as a no-brainer: a supposedly “simple and effective” way to generate more money for retirement by moving your pension away and investing it into something that will apparently (according to a number of financial advisers and marketing companies) make you big bucks!

But time and time again, the Claims Team here at Spencer Churchill Claims Advice find that the significant risks of a final salary pension transfer are under-represented to the individual, so IFAs and marketing firms can rake in big commissions and transfer fees.

And the FCA may have just about had enough…

FCA to probe every firm advising on DB Transfers

The Financial Conduct Authority, which authorises firms to give advice on things like Defined Benefit pensions, will be asking EVERY firm with permissions to advise to supply the regulator with data about pension transfers, so that trends in advice practice can be identified.

Megan Butler (FCA director of supervision) said, “In 2018 we will be collecting data from all firms that hold the pension transfer permission with the intention of assessing practices across the entire market to build a national picture”.

In 2017, the FCA looked at just 13 firms offering pension transfer advice and found that less than 50% of the 88 cases they looked at were considered to have been “suitable”, meaning that the individuals who received the advice may not have received advice in their best interests.

Mis-sold pension transfer claims

If you’ve transferred your pension away from a final salary or other DB pension scheme, then you may have suffered from:

• Increased risk – your retirement fund now rests on the fate of your investments, and that risk is now on you.
• Loss of benefits – DB pensions have certain irreplaceable benefits
• Large fees – DB pension transfers often mean incurring huge fees, some of which are hidden
• Advice not in your best interest – with big commissions and fees on the table, some IFAs may play-down the risks you will be exposed to.

The good news

But, if you’re DB pension transfer was over £35k, the chances are you took regulated financial advice, and may be able to hold that adviser to account for any financial damage you may have suffered through the loss of your DB pension.

The team of mis-sold pension specialists at Spencer Churchill Claims Advice deal with dodgy pension transfers on a regular basis – our bread and butter, and may be able to help you identify signs you were mis-sold your new pension with our FREE Initial Assessment services – no obligation on your part, just a chat about what happened with your pension.

From there, you may be able to go ahead and make a no upfront costs claim for any mis-sold pension transfers you may have!

Justice in the end? Let’s hope so!

Please note: you have an initial cooling off period of 14 days, if you cancel outside of this period you may be charged for the work carried out and if we have already submitted your claim, which results in an offer of compensation subsequently being made, we will charge our full fee as per our T&Cs – our fee is 20% + VAT – a total of 24%.