UK regulator starts suitability crackdown with letters to advisers
Publish date: 21 February 2020
Issue Number: 108
Diary: CompliNEWS
Category: Regulatory
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK is probing advisers on their retirement income advice records by sending a number of information requests to randomly selected advice firms.
According to a report by FT Adviser, the letters ask advisers to provide data on their clients who are receiving income in retirement, specifically: the advice given, how the client was receiving income, what ongoing advice was being provided and what fees were charged.
The FCA asked the firms for data on all the retirement income advice recommendations made over the past two years.
The letters form part of the regulator's fresh crackdown on the advice market it had warned about in a letter sent to advice firms last month.
The sharp focus on retirement income advice suggests the FCA is moving its beady eye away from the defined benefit transfer market and towards the potential conflict of interest created in retirement income advice, experts have warned.
