Royal London, in collaboration with financial advisers, has produced a new pension review service which is designed to meet Financial Conduct Authority requirements.
The Royal London Review Service allows advisers to collate all the required information via an online portal in a user-friendly and time efficient manner.
The report is automatically made available and includes extra data, in the form of projection assumptions and a breakdown of the client’s pension contributions.
Colin Mitchell, head of pensions proposition at Royal London’s intermediary business, said: “Good client outcomes are in everyone’s interest.
"Our new review service provides advisers with an easier and more efficient review process, allowing them to concentrate their efforts on what really matters – adding ‘real’ value for their clients with advice on their current pension and their potential options and choices, which can often be quite complex."
Peter Jenkins, director at Burfield Financial planners, said: “We welcome this initiative. It’s very good to see big players in our industry, such as Royal London, getting on board.
"We all benefit from the efforts companies put in to help ensure advisers are able to conduct their business to the best of their ability, and in accordance with the regulatory requirements.”
Pensions are rarely out of the headlines in a climate where retirees are rushing to transfer out of their defined benefit pension schemes in order to get their hands on the cash.
But advisers are facing tough scrutiny about the suitability of the pension advice they give, particularly on pension transfers, as well as on the underlying investments people place their savings in via a self-invested personal pension.
Pension experts have argued the FCA should come up with universal retirement income rules that would allow advisers and providers to better assist savers.
Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, said when the industry wants to come up with a bullet proof rule to say "this is a safe recommendation" that everyone can use, the only phrase the industry can come up with is “pile into your pension.”
“But we can’t give them the kind of guidance [listing universal rules] that we would want to. We are still hamstrung at a regulatory level from giving people the information they need.”
