PensionsDec 14 2017

FCA considers register changes after steelworkers' criticism

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FCA considers register changes after steelworkers' criticism

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) is considering making changes to improve its much maligned register of authorised firms, after acknowledging criticism information is not “always easy to find”.

In an interview last night (13 December) on Channel 4, Megan Butler, the FCA’s head of supervision, said that the watchdog is “thinking about the register very hard”.

She said: “We are thinking about it as consumers are likely to use it more and more moving forward, I think we will have a look.”

Flaws in the FCA register were flagged up yesterday at a hearing at the Work and Pensions select committee in Parliament, where members British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) told MPs about their struggle to find a qualified adviser to help them with their pension decisions.

The steelworkers' pensions have become a nationwide talking point involving the industry's main watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority as well as MPs and The Pension Regulator, amid serious concerns the Port Talbort workers are being given the wrong advice about what to do with the lucrative settlements they will get from the pension scheme ahead of its closure.

The FCA has forced three firms to stop carrying out pension transfers for steelworkers in light of concerns about bad advice.

Steelworkers have until 22 December to decide whether to move their defined benefit (DB) pension pots to a new plan being created, BSPS II, or stay in the current fund, which will be moved to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

The failed scheme has about 130,000 members of which 43,000 are deferred, which means transferring out of their pension is an option for them.

Rich Caddy, shift operations manager at British Steel in Teesside, said: "The advice we have been given is to look in the FCA register, but only after looking at the drop-down menu [of a firm's register page] I found that they were not able to give pension transfers advice.

"This process could be made so much easier if I was able to find a pension transfer specialist just by putting in a post code."

MPs also asked for a change in the register at yesterday’s hearing, telling Ms Butler that firms should be easily traceable on the FCA register to prevent further harm to consumers.

Ms Butler agreed and said: “They should be find-able. We will go back and see whether there’s more we can do [to make that happen].”

An overhaul of the FCA register has already been demanded by the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association (Pimfa), the largest financial advice trade body, due to changes being brought in under the senior managers’ regime process.

Pimfa said the register is currently “not fit for purpose” and warned some effects of the new rules forcing senior managers to become more accountable for what happens in their firms could be “retrograde”.

Earlier this year the FCA published plans to extend the regime to the whole financial services sector, including advisers, next year.

maria.espadinha@ft.com