Investment manager and pension adviser Tideway has overhauled its final salary transfer service, in response to adviser demand for outsourced advice on defined benefit transfers.
Previously targeted only at retail customers, the outsourcing advice service will now be open to financial advisers wary of taking on DB transfers - and the associated compliance risks - themselves.
It will be headed up by Peter Simes, formerly account director at Legal and General Private Client Solutions, and James Brooks, who was most recently business distribution director at Ashcourt Rowan, and before that a divisional director at Brewin Dolphin.
Tideway’s final salary transfer service for retail customers was launched in 2014 following the announcement of the new pension freedoms.
Since then, Tideway managing partner James Baxter said the firm has seen increasing demand from advisers and wealth managers who want to outsource what he described as a particularly “complex” area of advice.
“After 250 cases we still find things in schemes we have not seen before and client circumstances that make us stop and think,” he said.
“There is no fast track, black and white, process for giving advice on transfers. Each case must be looked at on its own merit taking account of individual client circumstances and objectives, the relative size of the offer, timing and the ceding scheme’s financial position.”
Mr Baxter said old-style transfer value analysis reports are particularly confusing for advisers.
“We regularly see cases where traditional advice reliant on TVAS critical yields has advised against a transfer when it’s clearly the wrong advice and the TVAS yields are very misleading.”
Stephen Lowe, a financial adviser with Lucent Fiancial Planning, welcomed the announcement, telling FTAdviser that there was “definitely” demand for Tideway’s new service.
“More and more people are seeking to transfer DB schemes, but most advisers can’t or won’t do it,” he said. Though qualified himself to provide the service, Mr Lowe said he doesn’t offer it because of the complexity of the processes involved.
Tideway’s new website was launched this week.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
