Recently passing across my radar was a marketing email that included the following headlines in bullet points:
‘Everyone with a pension will be able to take 100 per cent cash from April 2015 if you act now.’
‘Personal Pensions: Get 25 per cent tax free cash now and the rest next year.’
‘Public Sector final salary: Must act now to get 100 per cent cash.’
Although I suspect this may well be some appointed representative firm, I noticed there was reference to an FCA-regulated firm lurking in the background.
So, I pose this question to the FCA. On what basis can a marketing initiative, that, even in the slightest way, encourages people to abandon their defined benefit pensions in favour of an instant cash hit have any place in the financial advice arena?
I’ll get my chequebook ready for the increased levies now, shall I?Somewhere down the line the painful truth will come home to these (by then, impoverished) retirees – and what then? A round of recriminations, hand-wringing, platitudes and (inevitably) FCSC payments.
I’ll get my chequebook ready for the increased levies now, shall I?
How about regulators getting ahead of the game and stopping this behaviour before the pots of hapless pensioners are plundered?
How about the instant this kind of marketing appears, swift and decisive regulatory action arrives at the door of the proponents of this shameless practice?
Ivor Harper is director at Park Financial
