The head of The Pension Advisory Service has unveiled plans to allow clients to share the abridged fact find generated by their guidance councillor with financial advisers
Speaking at the FTAdviser Retirement Freedoms Forum in London, Michelle Cracknell, chief executive at TPAS, said advisers have commended the initiative, but many have said their compliance department would prevent them from utilising the data.
She said the report, which is not as detailed as a traditional adviser fact find, would serve as a good “entree” to the development of an adviser client relationship.
“We spoke to the FCA about it and they said the customer has to own the data and IFA needs to check up on the data, but we think it would be a great start.”
“We put all the data we collect on our customers in our customer management system, so the ability of creating a report on what the customer has told us is already there, but what we do need to have in place is a safe and secure mechanism for sending it onto the customer. The customer will then be able to share it with their adviser."
She added that the customer will need to take some responsibly that if something they told Tpas "wasn’t quite right", when they have a conversation with advisers they would correct it.
Ms Cracknell also revealed an increase in the number of people expressing a reticence about the legal requirement since 2015 and the introduction of pension freedoms for those with pension pots of more that £30,000 to seek advice.
She labelled the mentality as a "sad and unintended consequence" of the pension freedoms.
“I think it is part of the British psyche, she said.
“I don’t think we like being told what to do and I think one of the roles guidance plays for people is to try to help them understand what they don’t know and the benefit they can get by investing a bit of time thinking about their pension.
"Sometimes, as a consequence of that, they realise the benefit of seeking advice.”
