The providers, named in a letter from PensionBee chief executive Romi Savova to pensions minister Guy Opperman, include The People’s Pension, Cushon, XPS and Railpen. PensionBee has alleged that these providers are abusing the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfers) Regulations, which were established in legislation in 2021.
The regulations enable providers to flag transfers with a high scam risk, potentially blocking them where certain criteria have been met. But PensionBee has accused providers of using these regulations to obstruct the process and freeze legitimate transfers.
The providers themselves sternly rejected the suggestion that they had been acting in bad faith, with B&CE, the provider of The People’s Pension, arguing that PensionBee’s marketing schemes fall outside the scope of the regulations and so must be flagged.
It’s appalling to see pension schemes abuse regulations to prevent savers from moving their retirement savings to their provider of choice
XPS reported in February that pension transfer “red flags” had risen to 50 per cent, despite an overall reduction in transfer activity. In the same month, the DWP suggested it might be willing to amend scam rules to ensure that low-risk overseas investments were no longer flagged.
Almost three-quarters (70 per cent) of transfer requests made in March exhibited scam indicators, representing the highest rate of scam flags since…
