I had been hearing whispers that something strange was happening at Standard Life’s group personal pension (GPP) business.
Whereas the FCA has been attempting to drive the market to a place where it is the consumer who exercises choice, Standard Life seems to be on a different highway.
In response to a letter of authority for a GPP member, I received this: “As this plan is part of a group pension scheme, all members of the scheme must have the same financial adviser.”
That’s unfortunate. Not only had the member received no advice from whoever the appointed adviser is, but now she is prevented from receiving it from an alternative source. But the fun doesn’t end there.
Not only had the member received no advice from whoever the appointed adviser is, but now she is prevented from receiving it from an alternative sourceWitness this comment, when asked if a member could turn off ongoing commission: “Where a client has established a Group Flexible Pension arrangement on a pre-RDR basis that pays trail commission, we can accept requests from individual scheme members to stop the payment of that remuneration to the adviser; in doing so the associated charge for commission stops.
“For some legacy arrangements the commission charge was bundled with the overall scheme terms and therefore although the payment of remuneration can be stopped the commission charge would remain as it was built into the overall cost to the customer.”
So, it is happy to turn off trail commission but it is a little more choosy when it comes to improving members’ terms as a result.
Ivor Harper is a director at Park Financial
