The Pensions Regulator (TPR) have fined the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) the maximum amount of £2,000 for insufficient details in their 2018 Defined Contribution (DC) governance statement.
The FCA had failed to comply with the chair’s statement, where the DC scheme trustees have to explain the actions they have taken to comply with certain obligations.
The obligations include information on the scheme’s default fund, its governance, the costs and charges applied and assessment of value for members.
The Financial Time Adviser has found that the FCA should have provided additional details on the regular training that members of the trustee board receive ‘to maintain their knowledge in relation to the scheme’s governing documentation. There was also incomplete information on historical details on fund manager’s costs and charges for investing the pension pot, as well as the date of the most recent review of the investment strategy had taken place.
An FCA spokesperson said:
“In considering the FCA Pension Plan’s application to become an authorised master trust, TPR reviewed its 2018 DC governance statement and ruled it contained insufficient detail.
“The FCA Pension Plan trustee has apologised to members of the plan, and reviewed systems and processes to ensure all the required information is available to members and the 2019 governance statement (provided in October) was fully compliant.
“The plan’s application to become an authorised master trust has been approved.”
Last year, Nicola Parish, executive director for frontline regulation at The Pensions Regulator, said:
“Annual chair’s statements are an essential way to show pension savers that their scheme is being properly governed and will deliver the retirement benefits they are promised. That’s why it is the law for trustees to produce chair’s statements and make sure they contain all of the necessary information.”
This is not the first embarrassment for the FCA, who are currently facing independent investigations into its actions and policies in relation to the firm London Capital & Finance, who the FCA were regulating when they went into administration in January 2019.
In November 2019, an internal memo was leaked, where the FCA had appealed to stall to clean up their act over “shameful” working conditions at its London headquarters.
