Pension adviser banned by FCA over BSPS cases

Financial adviser Denis Lee Morgan has been banned by the FCA from advising on pension transfers and opt outs following British Steel Pension Scheme advice failings. Mr Morgan, of Pembrokeshire Mortgage Centre Ltd (in liquidation), has also been banned from holding any senior management function in a regulated firm. According to the FCA, Mr Morgan demonstrated a lack of competence in his oversight of his firm’s pension transfer advice process between 8 June 2015 and 7 December 2017. The regulator highlighted his actions between August and November 2017, when Pembrokeshire Mortgage Centre advised an average of 65 people customers a month, largely members of the BSPS. The total value of the transferred funds on which PMC gave advice was approximately £123m, with an average transfer value per customer of approximately £293,000 (£314,000 for British Steel Pension Scheme members). Mr Morgan was either the primary adviser or the pension transfer specialist on all these cases, which meant he was ultimately responsible for the quality of advice. In most cases, Mr Morgan failed to consider the customers’ financial situation, retirement needs, their attitude to risk or that transferring would be in their best interests. This meant people in a vulnerable position did not get the quality of advice they needed to make an informed decision. Mr Morgan personally received £1,368,608 from initial and ongoing advice fees with the FCA saying in its final notice that, “a significant proportion of Mr Morgan’s total income from the advice was attributable to his breaches.” Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “People depended on Mr Morgan to provide them with suitable advice on one of the most important decisions of their lives. His incompetence put their retirement funds at unnecessary risk, while earning over £2m in fees for his firm, which he didn’t deserve. “Where advisers fail to take reasonable steps to ensure the advice they provide is suitable for customers, we will take action to prevent them harming other customers.” The Pembrokeshire Mortgage Centre has already been fined £2.354m for unsuitable advice to customers to transfer out of the BSPS and other defined benefit pension schemes. The overall FSCS uphold rate in relation to compensation claims against Pembrokeshire Mortgage Centre was 88%. In 80 cases (38%), the FSCS awarded the claimant the maximum compensation available of £85,000. The FSCS has so far upheld 213 claims against the firm and paid out over £13.3m in compensation. Had it not been for the compensation limit of £85,000, the total compensation payable to customers would have been approximately £16.4m.

Pension adviser banned by FCA over BSPS cases

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