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<p>The Government is committed to working with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA),
the independent financial services regulator, who are responsible for ensuring that
the financial advice market works well, competitively and fairly. The Government has
established a strong regulatory framework to enable the FCA’s work.</p><p> </p><p>In
November 2018, the FCA requested data from every firm with permission to advise on
defined benefit pension transfers, which provided them with a full picture of the
market from 2015. In publishing the data in June 2019, the FCA raised concerns that
firms are recommending that large numbers of consumers transfer out of their defined
benefit (DB) pension schemes despite the FCA’s stance that transfers are likely to
be unsuitable for most clients.</p><p> </p><p>Although the data are not an assessment
of the suitability of advice, they give the FCA the information they need to focus
their supervision work. The FCA will be writing to all firms and started visits to
the most active firms in the market, with a view to complete a full assessment of
the firms’ approach to DB advice, focusing on key aspects of firms’ business models
and processes which could give rise to harm. The FCA will not hesitate to use their
investigatory powers where they identify evidence of misconduct which could have caused
harm to consumers.</p>
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