Platforms off the hook on charging
On Thursday (March 14) the FCA published its long-awaited 60-page final report on the Investment Platforms Market Study, in which it exonerated platforms from the responsibility of policing adviser charges.
The regulator announced the launch of a consultation which could lead to a ban or a cap on exit fees, while also allowing investors to switch platforms without having to sell the underlying investment.
The report also proposed a ban or cap on exit fees, to apply to platforms and firms offering a comparable service to retail clients.
The City watchdog dropped the controversial proposal to require platforms to 'police' the ongoing provision of advice where a customer was paying ongoing adviser charges and there had been no platform activity for 12 months.
Instead, the FCA said advisers would now be responsible for notifying platforms when a client contract ends, and urged platforms to get in touch id they were not receiving notifications from advisers.
FCA gets tough on pension scams
The regulator announced this week it is investigating 20 alleged pension scams as part of its work on pensions-related misconduct.
In a letter sent to the Work and Pensions select committee, Andrew Bailey said the investigations made up a "significant proportion" of the work being done by staff in the enforcement, regulatory and retail investigations division.
The regulator previously reported victims of pension scams lost an average of £91,000 each last year.
Mr Bailey said the watchdog's pension scam intelligence team, which has six people on it, acted as the point of contact for all intelligence about pension scams across the FCA.
He added: "Our approach to resourcing is deliberately flexible, but if we add up the time spent by our staff it is substantially larger than 10 full time equivalents."
rachel.addison@ft.com
