£125m pension transfer adviser appeals FCA fine

The FCA has provisionally fined pension transfer financial adviser Geoffrey Edward Armin £1.28m for a number of advice failings. Mr Armin, of Retirement and Pension Planning Services Limited of Matlock, Derbyshire, which is now in liquidation, has appealed the decision to the Upper Tribunal. The FCA says it believes Mr Armin was “seriously incompetent” when advising on 422 pension transfers totalling £125m. Mr Armin provided pension transfer advice to British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) workers and other clients. He provided advice on £125m of pension transfers in total with £74m of that related to BSPS workers. The FCA says its fine is provisional and will not apply if Mr Armin’s appeal is successful. The watchdog says Mr Armin received significant financial benefit from the transfers and its fine seeks to “remove” the benefits he received. The FCA decided to fine Mr Armin £1,284,523 and ban him from performing any senior management function in relation to any regulated activities carried on by an authorised person, exempt person or exempt professional firm. The FCA has also decided to ban Mr Armin from advising consumers on pension transfers and pension opt outs. Mr Armin advised 422 customers on the transfer of their defined benefit pensions into alternative pension arrangements, including 183 members of the British Steel Pensions Scheme – 174 of whom transferred out of the scheme following Mr Armin’s recommendation. The FCA considers that Mr Armin was “seriously incompetent” when advising on defined benefit pension transfers, breaching Statement of Principle 2: conducting business with due skill, care and diligence, and Statement of Principle 7: taking reasonable steps to ensure that RPPS complied with relevant regulatory requirements and standards. The FCAC said that in advising customers, Mr Armin failed to obtain the necessary information required to assess the suitability of a pension transfer for a customer and also disregarded information including customers’ financial situation, income needs throughout retirement, and how their existing pension benefits compared to the proposed alternative. In some cases, Mr Armin only informed customers of the consequences of their decision to forego the valuable guaranteed benefits offered by their defined benefit pension after they had already transferred out of the scheme. The total value of transfers on which Mr Armin advised was £125m, £74m of which related to the British Steel Pension Scheme. The average transfer value for customers advised by Mr Armin was approximately £298,000. Mr Armin’s firm received £2.2m in fees for all defined benefit pension transfer advice, 55% (approximately £1.2m) of which was retained by RPPS and Mr Armin.

£125m pension transfer adviser appeals FCA fine

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