4 in 5 (79%) of financial advisers believe delays in pension transfers have had a moderate or severe impact on client trust, according to a new report.

Half (50%) of advisers surveyed by Pension Bee said that transfer delays frequently damage client communication, whilst 82% said problematic transfers are harming the reputation of the financial services industry as a whole.

One in ten (12%) of the advisers surveyed said they regularly experience pension transfer issues.

The report found that while some pension transfers take under seven working days, others drag on for months or even years. In one extreme case uncovered in the research, an adviser reported a customer waiting over 1,000 days for a transfer to complete.

Pension Bee said that the unreasonable delays could potentially be in breach of the FCA’s Consumer Duty, and called for the introduction of a 10-day pension switch guarantee.

Advisers also called for reforms to pension transfers. The majority (97%) called for the worst offenders to be required to compensate affected customers, whilst 96% supported a change in primary legislation to enforce a reasonable pension switch timeframe. Three quarters (74%) of advisers also called for a consistent process across providers.

The worst-performing providers saw average pension transfer times of between 34.7 and 66.4 days in 2024.

The ten worst-performing providers were:

 Source: Pension Bee, A Switch in Time report, 16 May 2025

Of the 163 financial advisers surveyed for the report, 27 reported waiting for over a year for a transfer to complete.

Lisa Picardo, chief business officer UK at Pension Bee, said: “The evidence is clear: delays are harming consumers and undermining trust in our industry. The system is letting poor performers off the hook and rewarding the wrong behaviours. The technology and standards exist to support more efficient pension transfers. The will among advisers and consumers exists to see change. What’s missing is meaningful legislation and regulatory enforcement.

“The Government and regulators must now step in and level the playing field, reshaping the pension transfer system that so desperately needs modernisation. That means primary legislation. And above all, that means putting the interests of consumers first. Swift switching isn’t a ‘nice to have’ — it should be a basic right.”

Richard Clark, chief commercial officer at Origo, said many of the firms improving transfer times and practices in the sector were using the Origo Transfer Service, many of them utilising digital transfer processes to speed up transfers.

He added: "Unfortunately there are some pension providers out there that are still clinging to manual processes, leading to unacceptable delays and impacting consumer trust in pensions more broadly.  

"It's good that PensionBee is drawing attention to this issue and our view is that, if things are really to change, then the spotlight now needs to turn to making the outlier providers who haven't invested in efficiency and digitising processes accountable.”

• The LangCat surveyed 163 financial advisers on behalf of Pension Bee in February and March 2025.