Firm fined £2.4m as FCA reaches "advanced stage" with 30 BSPS pension transfer enforcements

A Welsh firm of advisers has been fined nearly £2.4 million over pension transfers - one of 30 investigations "at a very advanced stage" being carried out and concluded in relation to the British Steel Pension Scheme.

By Neasa MacErlean

The Pembrokeshire Mortgage Centre Limited, now in liquidation, advised 420 individuals to transfer, recommending that 96 per cent of them leave British Steel and other defined benefit schemes, as well as classifying the remaining four per cent who also transferred as 'insistent' clients. Trading from Cardiff as County Financial Consultants, it made over £2m in fees "using generic, templated advice not tailored to the specific circumstances of their customers", according to Mark Steward, the Financial Conduct Authority's Enforcement director. The firm's quality of advice was "woeful", he said, and "particularly egregious" for members of British Steel, since many of them were vulnerable.