Financial advisers, wealth managers and platforms will be included in the Financial Conduct Authority’s wide-ranging Investment Platforms Market Study announced today.

The FCA will investigate if consumers are being harmed by a mismatch between the interests of the adviser and client when advisers select a platform.

Aberdeen Life, the unit-linked insurance subsidiary of Aberdeen Asset Management, has appointed two industry veterans, Otto Thoresen and David Hare, as chairman and senior non-executive director respectively.

Lancashire-based firm Acumen Financial Partnership has announced that director Jon Landy has increased his shareholding in the business to 35% and the firm has also appointed Lucy Molina as its new Financial Planning co-ordinator.

The FCA has fined a compliance oversight officer for pension transfer failings after about 500 customers with pensions worth £12.7million were advised to move from a DB to DC scheme.

The Chartered Insurance Institute is preparing the launch of a new pension transfers qualification following FCA plans to tighten the advice requirements for the transfer of safeguarded benefits.

The freedom to withdraw pension funds from 55 needs to be accompanied by flashing warning lights, a pensions firm director says, after the cut to the Money Purchase Annual Allowance was sealed.

Platform and Sipp provider AJ Bell has appointed as its new technical director a man who has previously “locked horns” with chief executive Andy Bell over technical issues.

Broadway Financial Planning’s MD Keri Carter has been handed a leading role in shaping the CISI’s Financial Planning strategy.

The CISI has revealed that its head of Financial Planning, Campbell Edgar, is to retire soon.