What is a sipp trust?

jamesd

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 

We're also in circumstances where regulatory compliance and business risk mitigation can make it better for a business to say no even when the client can expect to better achieve their objectives by transferring. There are two versions of the agency problem at work there, a regulator which gets no reward for successful transfers and both regulator and advisers get disincentive from failures, creating a one way regulatory incentive structure to undo the will of Parliament to deliver pension freedom. Regrettably the decision to add a £30k advice requirement to the original freedom law is now being heavily abused by the FCA.

Prism

jamesd said:

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 

We're also in circumstances where regulatory compliance and business risk mitigation can make it better for a business to say no even when the client can expect to better achieve their objectives by transferring. There are two versions of the agency problem at work there, a regulator which gets no reward for successful transfers and both regulator and advisers get disincentive from failures, creating a one way regulatory incentive structure to undo the will of Parliament to deliver pension freedom. Regrettably the decision to add a £30k advice requirement to the original freedom law is now being heavily abused by the FCA.

Its the IFA who is saying they won't perform the transfer. If they were advising that they would then this wouldn't be a problem. Have you ever heard of an IFA not advising a transfer and then helping an insistent client to set up a stakeholder pension and do it anyway? Has anyone recently tried to transfer a DB pension to a stakeholder and succeeded? Until there is some evidence that it actually works I'm not sure anyone can say its possible.

[Deleted User]

jamesd said:

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 

We're also in circumstances where regulatory compliance and business risk mitigation can make it better for a business to say no even when the client can expect to better achieve their objectives by transferring. There are two versions of the agency problem at work there, a regulator which gets no reward for successful transfers and both regulator and advisers get disincentive from failures, creating a one way regulatory incentive structure to undo the will of Parliament to deliver pension freedom. Regrettably the decision to add a £30k advice requirement to the original freedom law is now being heavily abused by the FCA.

Thank you, jamesd. Afaik the first acknowledgement of the reality of the process on this board from someone at the business end. Not that everyone sees it that way. I'll let Malthusian mount the argument for the current process.

xylophone

And which stakeholder pension is currently allowing new accounts without advisor involvement? Its not looking as easy as it sounds.

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

Re VM pension.

https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/splash/pensions.jsp

And see (from years back) - a number of these have long passed to new management...

https://pensionsorter.co.uk/stakeholder-pension-providers/#D-M

As to OPRA

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/7-107-6203?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true#:~:text=The statutory UK regulator established,Pensions Regulator in April 2005.

jamesd

Prism said:

jamesd said:

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 
...

Its the IFA who is saying they won't perform the transfer. If they were advising that they would then this wouldn't be a problem. Have you ever heard of an IFA not advising a transfer and then helping an insistent client to set up a stakeholder pension and do it anyway? Has anyone recently tried to transfer a DB pension to a stakeholder and succeeded? Until there is some evidence that it actually works I'm not sure anyone can say its possible.

Not so. The IFA has said that they will perform the transfer, after advising against it, on insistent client basis. But the first receiving scheme just changed its policy on accepting such transfers from yes to no, so another one is needed.

Yes, I've both heard of this combination and read some FCA work on it's frequency, which seems quite high. And it makes sense, since an IFA can protect a customer against many risks. It's also consistent with the revised will of Parliament to require taking advice but not following the advice and we should hope that IFAs will be willing to follow the intent of law.

As well as occasional anecdotal reports here you'll find mention of it if you read enough of the FCA consultation and feedback documents. It's somewhere between commonplace and routine.

jamesd

ZingPowZing said:

Thank you, jamesd. Afaik the first acknowledgement of the reality of the process on this board from someone at the business end. ...

Just to be clear: I do not now and never have worked in financial services.

Prism

jamesd said:

Prism said:

jamesd said:

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 
...

Its the IFA who is saying they won't perform the transfer. If they were advising that they would then this wouldn't be a problem. Have you ever heard of an IFA not advising a transfer and then helping an insistent client to set up a stakeholder pension and do it anyway? Has anyone recently tried to transfer a DB pension to a stakeholder and succeeded? Until there is some evidence that it actually works I'm not sure anyone can say its possible.

Not so. The IFA has said that they will perform the transfer, after advising against it, on insistent client basis. But the first receiving scheme just changed its policy on accepting such transfers from yes to no, so another one is needed.

Yes, I've both heard of this combination and read some FCA work on it's frequency, which seems quite high. And it makes sense, since an IFA can protect a customer against many risks. It's also consistent with the revised will of Parliament to require taking advice but not following the advice and we should hope that IFAs will be willing to follow the intent of law.

As well as occasional anecdotal reports here you'll find mention of it if you read enough of the FCA consultation and feedback documents. It's somewhere between commonplace and routine.

In this case I am pretty sure that the IFA has not said they will perform the transfer - they have simply said 'i know a guy' who will let you transfer to them, hence the OP is asking about that platform which nobody seems to have heard of. I haven't read anything on these boards about transfers to stakeholders probably because up until recently most people have used Youinvest. I agree it 'should' work but finding a non advised stakeholder seems to be the problem and the OP hasn't managed to yet.

candie01

Malthusian said:

candie01 said:

 It's not about what's best for the person like me, it's about what fits in with their insurance policy.

Nobody is obliged to do business with anybody. What's best for me right now is for someone to make me a sandwich, but that doesn't oblige my local IFA to make and sell me one. If I want advice on a DB transfer and an IFA doesn't cater to that market, the onus is on me to go to someone who does.

DB transfers are the most risky transaction that the average person in the UK can undertake in their lifetime, and only suitable for a tiny minority of them. (Which is a much smaller group than people who think they should cash in their DB scheme, due to the average person's difficulty in correctly valuing a future guaranteed income stream compared to an immediate lump sum, also known as 'pound signs in the eyes effect'.)

Which means that what is best for clients is to be advised by people who a) are highly qualified and confident in their ability to get the advice right b) confident that their advice is worth the price they will have to put on it (which, via PI premiums, prices in the difficulty of getting it right and the risk of redress) c) financially stable enough to cope with any complaints if it does go wrong. I.e. advisers who will happily stump up high PI insurance premiums.

ZingPowZing said:
Why are you saying that financial advisers who offer a way out before insistent clients hit a brick wall are "dodgy"?

I didn't. I said that pretending you're advising against something when you're actually helping them do it, to the point of recommending a specific provider, is dodgy. If you're helping a client do something and recommending a specific way in which they can do it, the supposed recommendation against it is a sham. Reputable advisers don't help clients to hang themselves. (Whether candie01 is actually hanging themself or whether the adviser's recommendation against it is wrong, or more charitably unnecessarily cautious, is beside the point. The point is that the adviser has said they are but still helping them do it.)

Faux insistent client business which is nothing of the kind = dodgy.

The OP has still not said what the adviser is trying to get them to invest in via AJ Bell / PSG so alarm bells are still ringing.

There is no brick wall. You do not need a positive recommendation to transfer out of a DB scheme. As I said, an adviser can and should be open about the fact that if the advice is negative, the punter will still be able to transfer out but will have to handle it themselves.

jamesd said:

A trust is normal with pensions so that bit tells us nothing.

Pension Solutions Group seems to have a type of pension called a Small Self-administered Scheme (SSAS) as their main product. A SSAS as used in this case is an outermost pension wrapper where PSG are paid to ensure that pension rules are followed and charge for this. The investments inside the pension can then be made via standard providers like AJ Bell. A SSAS can offer many useful features but none of them is needed by you. Since your money would be going to AJ Bell indirectly you don't needed to be worried about fraud.

However, you don't need to use a SSAS to achieve your objective. All Stakeholder pensions are required to accept these transfers. So instruct your IFA to pick one of them, handle the transfer for you, then do a routine defined contribution switch from the Stakeholder one to AJ Bell. This way you achieve the end result without adding another layer of third party charges.

I asked him this and he said "yes I've heard if the stakeholder option, however that's using a loophole.and not something my company would get involved with"
Even though he's trying to use a loophole to use a stepping stone to aj bell. 

candie01

Prism said:

jamesd said:

Prism said:

jamesd said:

Standard Life. Virgin Money. There are a thousand or so in all, though many are aimed at specific groups.

The IFA would do it because it's in the best interests of their client to receive advice as far as possible, for example selecting the best receiving scheme and possibly most suitable mixture of investments 
...

Its the IFA who is saying they won't perform the transfer. If they were advising that they would then this wouldn't be a problem. Have you ever heard of an IFA not advising a transfer and then helping an insistent client to set up a stakeholder pension and do it anyway? Has anyone recently tried to transfer a DB pension to a stakeholder and succeeded? Until there is some evidence that it actually works I'm not sure anyone can say its possible.

Not so. The IFA has said that they will perform the transfer, after advising against it, on insistent client basis. But the first receiving scheme just changed its policy on accepting such transfers from yes to no, so another one is needed.

Yes, I've both heard of this combination and read some FCA work on it's frequency, which seems quite high. And it makes sense, since an IFA can protect a customer against many risks. It's also consistent with the revised will of Parliament to require taking advice but not following the advice and we should hope that IFAs will be willing to follow the intent of law.

As well as occasional anecdotal reports here you'll find mention of it if you read enough of the FCA consultation and feedback documents. It's somewhere between commonplace and routine.

In this case I am pretty sure that the IFA has not said they will perform the transfer - they have simply said 'i know a guy' who will let you transfer to them, hence the OP is asking about that platform which nobody seems to have heard of. I haven't read anything on these boards about transfers to stakeholders probably because up until recently most people have used Youinvest. I agree it 'should' work but finding a non advised stakeholder seems to be the problem and the OP hasn't managed to yet.

He said he would facilitate the transfer to " to he pension solutions group" but not a stakeholder pension. 

JoeCrystal

Just out of interest, have you got in touch with the pension solutions group directly to ask if they are willing to accept the DB pension transfer on an insistent client basis?