As part of their commitment to the highest professional standards, Leicester based financial advisers Rowley Turton have adopted the Pension Transfer Gold Standard. Rowley Turton director and Pension Transfer Specialist, Scott Gallacher, explains.
The Gold Standard is a voluntary code of good practice from The Pensions Advice Taskforce (an industry backed initiative from the Personal Finance Society) for safeguarded and defined benefit pension transfer advice, based around a set of nine principles.
Rowley Turton have agreed to adopt and promote this standard and principles, so that consumers can better understand and find good advice, and be confident they are dealing with a firm that is going beyond minimum requirements when giving financial advice on pension transfers.
Pension transfers can be complicated and there are lots of things to think about before going ahead.
For example, people can underestimate both their life expectancy and the real value of their benefits. Consequently, they can end up making an expensive mistake by transferring their pension benefits without fully understanding the implications or costs of this.
Seeking professional financial advice will help to ensure that they are better able to make a fully informed decision that is in their best interests.
In addition, taking regulated financial advice is now compulsory for anyone looking to transfer what is termed ‘safeguarded’ benefits of more than £30,000. This rule was introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority to protect consumers and ensure that they are aware of all the pros and cons of transferring.
The Pension Transfer Gold Standard is intended to help consumers recognise good practice, ethical and professional standards when seeking financial advice on ‘safeguarded’ pension transfers.
Unfortunately, not all financial advisers have acted with their client’s best interests at heart with Final Salary pension transfers. The Pension Transfer Gold Standard is the profession’s response to this, and it is a way of helping people find good financial advisers who give honest high quality professional financial advice.
