Pensions - Articles - Comment from Aegon on pension scam consultation

 “The best way of protecting customers from pension scams is to heighten their awareness of fraudulent practices. While the proposal to ban pension cold-calling to protect people is widely welcomed, a broad brush approach applied to all pension cold calling poses a threat to some of the legitimate practices within the regulated adviser community. It could become very difficult for FCA regulated professional advisers to narrow the advice gap and improve customer outcomes through calls, or via a third party-introduction. We need a solution that stamps out bad practice without stopping good.

 “Any campaign to raise awareness of scams needs to avoid discouraging people from seeking help. As an industry we should be trying to increase people’s engagement with their pension savings not scare them off. But customers need to have easy ways of checking the legitimacy of anyone they are dealing with, for example through an FCA / ICO website listing all the regulated firms to ensure the adviser is genuine.

 “Limiting the right to a statutory transfer will give pension providers new welcome powers to stop suspicious transfers or suspend them until they have checked the receivingscheme is genuine. While this might cause a small delay in a few cases, it’s a minor inconvenience to ensure a customers’ pension savings don’t get into the wrong hands.

 “At present the regulatory barriers to establish a Small Self-Administered Scheme for fraudulent purposes are too low as anyone can set up a SSAS. We believe all SSASs should have an independent trustee, be registered with the Pensions Regulator, have greater restrictions on investments to minimise the use of high risk unusual investments, and complete annual returns.”