Portal Financial Services LLP

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi!

The company has asked us to post a reply. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the Forum.

Dear Sharon1612,

Firstly, let me assure you that we are a proper regulated independent pension advisory firm, that our free pension review offer is exactly that, and that the only action we take on your behalf with your existing providers prior to any transfer forms being signed is to ask them to provide factual information in order to advise you accurately.

There are a couple of things about your statement that worry me and I would be very grateful if you would contact us about it asap. We don’t cold call people to offer our services (we do write to people, advertise online and so on), and we don’t send people to houses to collect ID information. If someone has come to you posing as us asking for your ID then that is a real concern. We used to accept introduced business from a number of companies, at least one of which we discovered was doing exactly this – and we immediately terminated our agreement with them as this is not acceptable behaviour. It is possible that you were introduced to us by them and hence I would appreciate you contacting us so we can check.


To dunstonh:

I hope you don’t mind my expanding on / explaining a couple of your points. I believe you are trying to provide a balanced view and a lot of your warnings / suggestions make perfect sense. You are, however making a few assumptions about our business model.

“There is no such thing as a free pension review” – As explained earlier in this thread, this is our business model and it is exactly that. To give you an example, if you go through the whole process of us gathering all your pension information, our conducting a thorough factfind with you, our reviewing everything and then our providing written recommendations and advice, complete with details of the charges involved should you wish to take that advice, and you choose not to follow it – then there is absolutely no charge. That is a free pension review. Likewise, if we recommend you stay where you are, there is no charge. There are charges for setting up and transferring pensions, ongoing management etc. and they are all detailed as part of the free review once we know what our recommendation is.


“Novia is an advanced investment option.” – It doesn’t have to be. Novia is simply one of the platforms we use due to a combination of low charges for the client and the ability to place Dimensional funds in them. Whilst the science behind Dimensional is sophisticated (based on the work of the Nobel prize winning economist Eugene Fama), in essence from the client perspective the funds themselves are passive trackers with a few clever tweaks. Dimensional only work with a few businesses in the UK as it is philosophical mindset as much as anything, and currently are only available through a few platforms. We are working with several of the larger providers (more household names) to extend this availability.

Whilst I am all for preaching caution if anyone is feeling pressurised into doing something, or believes they don’t understand what is being offered (or worse scammed) I also feel that it is no-one’s interests to spread disinformation about a business based on assumptions.

If Sharon does want a second opinion then Unbiased is as good a place as any to start – one of the companies you will find on there is us.

Bob

Portal Financial

TH1878

Some fair points made by Portal there.

However, there is a definite bias towards recommending a transfer even if its not in the clients best interests.

1) They review your pension and advise you to keep it where it is = No fee applies

2) They review your pension and advise you to move it = fee applies.

Unfortunately, this is fairly typical across our profession and is a way of putting an adviser in front of a client.

bigadaj

TH1878 wrote: »

Some fair points made by Portal there.

However, there is a definite bias towards recommending a transfer even if its not in the clients best interests.

1) They review your pension and advise you to keep it where it is = No fee applies

2) They review your pension and advise you to move it = fee applies.

Unfortunately, this is fairly typical across our profession and is a way of putting an adviser in front of a client.

Though if the transfer is inappropriate and undertaken by a regulated company then this would be determined a Mis sale with the appropriate recompense required to be made by the company and/ or its insurers.

The approach could be fine if the volume of business correctly generated was sufficient to cover the time for which they might correctly ascertain that no transfer is advisable; and this would obviously be a threat to hourly paid advisers if it were.

TH1878

bigadaj wrote: »

Though if the transfer is inappropriate and undertaken by a regulated company then this would be determined a Mis sale with the appropriate recompense required to be made by the company and/ or its insurers.

The approach could be fine if the volume of business correctly generated was sufficient to cover the time for which they might correctly ascertain that no transfer is advisable; and this would obviously be a threat to hourly paid advisers if it were.

The FCA is quite clear that there shouldn't be cross-subsidy between clients.

sandsy

TH1878 wrote: »

The FCA is quite clear that there shouldn't be cross-subsidy between clients.

Where would I find that requirement?

bigadaj

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Though if no fee was charged then it's not covered by pi insurance. it could of course be argued that the customer is in no worse a situation from the lack of a change of product than if he hadn't undergone the review.

Red_Ant

I had an unsolicited mailshot from these people today. I'm on the Mailing Preference List, and never opt in to anything so my doormat is usually free of mail like this.
I contacted them, and to be fair they seem to accept that people will want to trace how they got their details. There is a reference code at the top of the letter that indicates the source of your data - in my case the code was DLG-P1 which led to a company called Data Locator Group, and they gave me their contact details so I could establish how they had come to pass on my details.

I then contacted Data Locator Group, and spoke to their compliance manager. She investigated the issue, and confirmed they had passed my details on in error.

PensionTech

I wouldn't be satisfied with "in error" - your details were deliberately sold. These companies thrive off ill-gotten personal data. If you report your case to the Information Commissioner's Office (and if other people do the same), they may investigate Portal and DLG.

Alexd52

I too have had about 4 or 5 unsolicited mailings from them over the past 12 months. To be honest, I just treat it like any other unsolicited mail and bin it!

euronorris

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As well as TCF. I don't see how a company that cross subsidises fees could argue that they are treating their customers fairly.