Pensions - Articles - Comment from Aegon on the FCAs Assessing Suitability Review

 “The positive FCA findings regarding the suitability of advice on investments, pensions accumulation and retirement income should offer reassurance to firms and confidence to their customers. The FCA’s extensive rulebook sets rigorous standards and it’s positive to see less than 1 in 20 files reviewed were not meeting all FCA requirements. This is against a backdrop of a fundamental change in pensions over the period of the review. The exercise also now allows the industry to work constructively with the FCA on the narrow areas where room for improvement was identified.

 “The findings on disclosure also help focus attention on areas for improvement. It’s notoriously difficult to strike the right balance between sufficient information and overkill from the customer perspective. There’s a risk that forthcoming EU developments will overburden customers with ever greater volumes of disclosure and we welcome the FCA’s intention to revisit this in 2019.”