Conflict of Interest Statement - Safeguarded Benefit Transfers

Safeguarded benefit transfers

Principle 5 (Transparent management of Conflicts of Interest) of the Pension Transfer Gold Standard requires us to create and maintain a Conflicts of Interest statement which identifies all the conflicts of interest to which the firm and its advisers may be exposed specifically in respect of advising on Safeguarded Benefit transfers, and sets out how these conflicts are mitigated and/ or remedied.

This document is our statement for this purpose.

Our commitment

We will take all appropriate steps to identify all conflicts of interest which our firm / advisers may be exposed to when advising on Safeguarded Benefit transfers and set out how these conflicts are to be mitigated and/or remedied.

Identifying a conflict of interest

When identifying the types of conflicts that arise, or may arise, we assess whether our firm, anyone connected with our firm or (if relevant) another client has an interest in the outcome of a service provided and has the potential to influence the outcome to the detriment of a client.

Identified conflicts of interest

Following our latest assessment, we have identified the following as actual or potential conflicts of interest in relation to giving advice on the transfer of safeguarded benefits:

1 Contingent Charges may create an incentive to transfer
2 Being part of the deVere Group may unduly influence transfer advice
3 Remuneration of advisers may create an incentive to give unsuitable advice to generate income

 

Managing conflicts of interest

We have the following systems & controls in place to mitigate the conflicts of interests we have identified.

1 At present Contingent charging is permitted by the FCA where it is suitable for clients. All clients receive a detailed Suitability Report which has been checked by a Pension Transfer Specialist to ensure it is a suitable recommendation. The cost of the advice itself is the same whether the client transfers or not. We believe we should only charge for the additional work involved in arranging a transfer and managing the investments if that is actually required.
2 deVere Group have no involvement in our transfer advice process and each case is considered on its own merits for suitability. We do not use deVere funds or platforms and do not receive any incentives for doing so. The DBAR transfer information service ceased in 2016.
3 We have a remuneration policy to manage adviser bonus etc. This includes compliance and other measures to ensure business is written to a high standard and is suitable. All transfer recommendations are signed off by a Pension Transfer Specialist. There are no special arrangements for DB transfer cases

 

Review of conflicts of interest statement

To ensure that this statement remains correct, we will review this on at least an annual basis. Any necessary changes will be made within seven working days of any review.

We are aware that deVere United Kingdom and associated Group companies have been cloned and UK residents are being contacted by a fraudulent company/companies, using our company details, images and London office address. If you have any communication from anyone using the email addresses that DO NOT end in @devere-uk.co.uk or @devere-group.com, please contact us as soon as possible on [email protected] or directly by telephone on +44 (0) 333 344 9530.

In addition to this, we have also been made aware of unsolicited calls being made by unscrupulous organisations which claim to have been recommended to contact individuals following details being passed from deVere United Kingdom. What follows is usually an invitation to invest in a European IPO – often a recognised name, frequently an airline. If you are contacted in this way, please DO NOT allow the call to continue, take the person’s details and refer this back to us via the contact details we provide above – It is a boiler room scam, we will report this to our regulator. deVere United Kingdom does not share client data with third party companies, so being contacted in this way will not be as a result of an introduction from us.

deVere United Kingdom and deVere Mortgages are trading names of deVere and Partners (UK) Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority FRN (469151). Auto Enrolment, Inheritance Tax Planning and Buy to let Mortgages are not regulated by the FCA.

deVere and Partners (UK) Limited are registered in England and Wales company registration number 05260529.