“We continue to engage with interested stakeholders in the market to monitor and assess the availability of PII for DB transfer advice as the PII market evolves.
“We have engaged with professional and trade body representatives from the advice sector, as well as speaking directly with individual insurers and brokers.”
British Steel saga
As part of its data collection, the FCA also asked additional questions to identify firms who had advised clients on the British Steel Pension Scheme.
Out of the 1,310 firms active in the market, 254 firms (19 per cent) had provided 3,427 clients with a personal recommendation to transfer from the BSPS in 2017-18.
The FCA stated: “We aim to follow-up with every firm that was materially involved in providing BSPS advice. As we have done to date, where we find that their advice may have been unsuitable, we will tell them to take appropriate corrective action.
“Where we suspect serious misconduct has occurred, we will undertake enforcement investigations. We are currently undertaking approximately 30 investigations into firms and individuals where the principal focus is DB pension transfer advice.”
BSPS members were asked to decide by December 2017 whether to move their DB pension to a new plan, BSPS2, or stay in the existing fund, which was then moved to the PPF as part of a restructuring of pension liabilities.
As a result about 8,000 members transferred out of the old scheme, with transfers collectively worth about £2.8bn.
But concerns about the suitability of the transfers were soon raised, leading to an intervention from the FCA that resulted in 10 companies – key players in the debacle – stopping their transfer advice service.
Last week (January 15), the City watchdog released its Defined Benefit Advice Assessment Tool (DBAAT) which assesses advice given before October 2020, with the FCA expected to release an updated tool which incorporates rule changes that came in force from October in the coming months.
amy.austin@ft.com
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