The professional body for Chartered Financial Planners says the taskforce will create an industry-wide benchmark for professional standards in pensions advice to help advisers, particularly smaller ones, follow best practice and benchmark themselves against peers.
Membership of the group is still evolving, with Sue Lewis from the FCA’s consumer panel and Michelle Cracknell from TPAS confirmed as the latest high-profile participants. Meetings will be held bi-monthly.
Among those joining the first two inaugural gatherings were former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb (Royal London), Margaret Snowden (Pensions Administration Standards Association), Simon Chrystal (Workplace Solutions), PFS board member (and former FCA technical specialist) Rory Percival and specialists/PI insurers from across the sector.
Keith Richards, chief executive of the 37,000-member PFS, said: “Its main focus will be to create a common set of professional standards, encourage the sharing of good practice and provide a code of conduct that gives clear guidance in areas of ambiguity for everyone involved in retirement planning.”
“The sector is predominantly made up of small firms, who are often not in a position to benchmark themselves against the wider market,” he continued.
“Consequently, we have been liaising with the government and the regulator to facilitate alignment and unity on key issues to produce the best possible consumer outcomes at all times. We are also seeking to ensure that the unintended consequences of pension freedoms do not unfairly impact the advice profession at a future point.”
Mr Richards continued: “Demand for professional advice continues to grow in the wake of pension freedoms, coupled with the evident Financial Planning needs of an aging demographic. But some of the resultant unintended consequences highlighted in part by the British Steel Pension Scheme fiasco demonstrate just how quickly public trust and sector reputation can be impacted.
“We want to play a greater role in protecting the interests of both the profession and the public. The taskforce has already started to develop a voluntary pension freedoms advice code, which will be made available to the public to provide greater transparency about what to expect from advisers.”
Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, added: ‘With so much negative coverage about financial advice, especially around pension transfers, it is great to see the industry taking a voluntary initiative to drive up standards.”
“With PI insurers becoming increasingly nervous, anything to provide reassurance that advisers are dedicated to doing the best for the clients is very welcome and will help to facilitate high quality, impartial advice for those considering a transfer in the future.”