Popular News
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Hundreds face huge tax bill after cashing in pension
Almost 300 people fully encashed a pension of more than £250,000 after tax-free cash between October 2023 and March 2024, paying a minimum £98,700 each in tax in the process, according to new analysis of FCA figures by Standard Life.
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Exclusive - SIPP and SSAS Survey reveals confidence
The latest issue of Financial Planning Today magazine, our exclusive sister publication for Financial Planners, Paraplanners, Wealth Managers and IFAs, has been published and is ready to view.
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AMPS hears from HMRC at spring conference
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Crisis-hit CII and PFS hold joint board meeting
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AJ Bell platform customers rise to nearly 600,000
Platform and SIPP provider AJ Bell increased its platform customer numbers by 9% to 593,000 over the past six months, the business reported today in interim results.
Latest Blog
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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: Over-taxation of pensions remains an issue
HMRC’s January pension schemes newsletter announced changes to tax codes for pensions, and a few headlines followed proclaiming HMRC had finally fixed the over-taxation issue. It would be fantastic if that was the case, but despite nearly 10 years of getting it wrong, the problem isn’t resolved yet.
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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.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a fine to CPS Advisory Ltd for making more than 100,000 unauthorised direct marketing calls to people about their pensions.
CPS Advisory, the parent company of Swansea-based The Advisory Network, was fined £130,000 for the breach of new laws on pensions cold calling.
Under the new cold calling laws, companies can only make calls to people about their pensions if they are authorised by the FCA and the recipient has an existing relationship with the caller.
The change to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR) which covers marketing calls, phone and texts in January 2019, was introduced to prevent people falling victim to scams, most of which are carried out through nuisance calls, and potentially losing their pensions.
Under PECR, businesses can face a fine of up to £500,000 from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
During its investigation, the ICO found that between 11 January 2019 and 30 April 2019, the company had made 106,987 calls to people without lawful authority.
The ICO found that the company was not a trustee or manager of a pensions scheme, was not authorised by the FCA and the evidence that it provided did not satisfy the ICO that valid consent had been obtained.
The Information Commissioner decided that this represented “a significant intrusion into the privacy of the recipients of such calls.”
Andy Curry, ICO head of investigations, said: “Unwanted pension calls can cause real distress and even significant financial hardship to often vulnerable people, who can end up losing their hard-earned pension pot to scammers.
“This company clearly flouted the law when they should have known better. Businesses making direct marketing calls are responsible for understanding their responsibilities under the legislation, ignorance is no excuse.”
A spokesman for The Pensions Regulator said: “This £130,000 fine should be a strong deterrent to any firm thinking of flouting the law on pension cold calls."
More than 32,000 pension savers have received £135m in compensation from providers who failed to inform them about enhanced annuity options, the FCA has revealed in its Annual Report and Accounts.
Over 50% of pension transfers covered by one pension firm’s scam protection service have been flagged up as at risk of a scam since the pandemic hit.
Pensions administrations business is behind a growth in recurring revenues at the STM Group and a slight increase in underlying revenue for the first half of 2020, however profits for the group have fallen.
Nearly half of financial advisers who currently offer pension transfers may quit the market in the next 12 months, new research has warned.
Chartered Financial Planner Jack McVitie, the founder and chief executive of retirement advisory firm LEBC, has died at 57 after a short illness.