The Financial Conduct Authority has banned Mark Abley from financial advisers County Capital Wealth Management Ltd, which is in liquidation, from providing any advice on pension transfers. He will also pay £106,000 towards the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 

 

The money Mr Abley has to pay will contribute to the redress owed to CCWM’s customers who transferred out of their defined benefit pension. As of 14 March 2023, the FSCS upheld 53 pension transfer claims against CCWM and paid out over £2.1m in compensation. He had received at least £60,000 for providing this advice. 

 

Between April 2015 and February 2018, CCWM advised 575 people to transfer out of their DB pension schemes, among them close to 150 members of the British Steel Pension Scheme, which has become synonymous with poor transfers advice. BSPS was restructured in 2017 when its sponsor Tata Steel UK was in financial difficulty. Around that time, 7,834 members decided to leave the scheme, with 95% of the transfers informed by independent financial advisers. 

 

The FCA said that Mr Abley was responsible for this advice. It found that 56% of the advice given failed to meet required standards and showed a lack of competence. 

 

“Mr Abley’s incompetence meant that he failed to give customers the advice they needed to make a significant decision about their retirement,” said Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA. 

 

She added: “He earned fees while putting their retirement money at risk. It is only right that he contributes to the costs of compensating these customers." 

 

 

The watchdog said Mr Abley did not obtain the information needed to make a suitable recommendation or properly assess whether the customer could understand and bear the financial risks of transferring their guaranteed pension and failed to provide evidence to show that the transfers were in his customers’ best interest.  

 

In addition, there were errors in the calculations used to compare customers’ existing pension schemes with the schemes it was proposed they transfer into.  

 

The ban and order to repay stand in contrast to the FCA’s treatment of Lighthouse Advisory Services Ltd last month. The regulator decided to only publicly censure the company as its new owners Quilter paid more than £23m in redress and co-operated with the FCA in its investigation, as well as replacing Lighthouse’s senior management and DB transfer processes. 

 

   

The FCA came under scrutiny itself for initial low take-up of compensation and absence of a redress scheme, in a report by the National Audit Office report about BSPS from March 2022, which led the FCA to set up its redress scheme.  

   

   

Last December, a group of pension advisers filed a legal complaint at the Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber over the regulator’s plans to set up a redress scheme for former British Steel Pension Scheme members but dropped the challenge earlier this year, with the advisers contributing to the FCA's costs.

 

   

As a result of the BSPS scandal and criticism of the FCA’s oversight of financial advisers, in 2020 the regulator banned the practice of contingent charging for pensions advice. Under this charging model, advisers only received a fee if a pension was transferred out, which meant they were incentivised to recommend a transfer.