Latest Blogs
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James Jones-Tinsley: Aiming for an advice-guidance sweetspot
As Nikhil Rathi is reappointed as CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for another five years, the FCA has set out its strategic direction for 2025/26, with important implications for financial advisers.
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Lisa Webster: Divorce impact on lump sums raises question
The lifetime allowance may have been consigned to the annals of history but the various forms of protection are still relevant in the new world, especially when it comes to the amount of pension commencement lump sum (PCLS) that can be taken.
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Martin Tilley: How education can tackle pension scams
The dark reality of pension scams is that we don’t really know how common they are. Fraud is a crime which tends to have low reporting events and with pension scams, it’s no different. The emotional toll can be as large as the financial, with some people being too embarrassed to report that they have been the victim of a scam.
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Lisa Webster: Maximising protected tax-free cash
While 2024 ended with a lot of doom and gloom in the pension world following the big announcement on inheritance tax (IHT), there was some good news that may have slipped under the radar of some advisers.
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Tilley: Is the age 75 trigger date now irrelevant?
Age 75 has been an important milestone in pension rules since A day in 2006. It was the latest age at which a compulsory annuity purchase was required (prior to Pensions Freedoms). It's arguably it’s long been an arbitrary line in the sand, noting that life expectancy has been on the increase for the last 20 years, but this trigger age has remained unchanged.
Popular News
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Workers in the dark about workplace pensions
Two in five, 43%, UK workers don’t know how much they are contributing to their workplace pension.
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TPT launches DC decumulation product
Workplace pension provider TPT Retirement Solutions has launched a DC decumulation product, which it said has been designed to simplify retirement income planning for savers.
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1.5m workers can't afford to save into a pension
More than 1.5m UK workers say they cannot afford to save into a pension.
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Pension transfer times rose during tax year end
Simpler pension transfers took an average of just 11 days to complete in the lead up to the end of the 2024/25 tax year.
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Lisa Webster: To gift or not to gift?
Since the announcement that pensions are to be included in estates for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes the question of whether those with large pension pots should be giving some funds away has become increasingly common.
Leicester-based wealth adviser Westerby Investment Management has recruited three new members of staff from Berkeley Burke in an expansion move.
ofAlmost one in ten (9%) of investors said that the source of information they have increased the most to help manage their investments is social media, with 7% now regarding it as their most important source of information.
The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) is creating three new investment company sectors as part of a sector reshuffle.
SIPP provider Curtis Banks has revealed the top technical queries its support team received in 2020.
The FCA has begun civil proceeding in the High Court against Paul Steel for providing unsuitable defined benefit pension transfer advice.
It has also secured in interim injunction which freezes the assets of both Mr Steel and his partner Ms Foster up to the value of £7m, pending a further hearing.
The regulator said Mr Steel’s firm, Estate Matters Financial (in liquidation), contravened the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by providing unsuitable defined benefit pension transfer advice, leading consumers to exit defined benefit pension schemes when it was not in their best interests to do so.
The regulator added that Mr Steel, Estate Matters Financial’s director and co-owner, was knowingly concerned in the contravention.
The FCA alleges that Mr Steel breached FCA requirements by undertaking a course of conduct which resulted in the removal of the firm’s assets, leaving it unable to meet potential liabilities for unsuitable advice, while enabling him to retain the significant profits that accrued from the provision of the advice and from ongoing fees.
An injunction was also obtained against Ms Foster on the basis that she may be holding or controlling assets owned by her partner Mr Steel.
The FCA has also asked the Court to make a restitution order requiring Mr Steel to compensate consumers who have suffered losses as a result of receiving unsuitable pension transfer advice.
No trial date has been set.
Wealth Manager Charles Stanley, which has a substanial SIPP arm, has removed VAT from its Managed Portfolio Service (MPS) across its Dynamic Passive, Blended and Multi-manager models.