The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has agreed to impose more business restrictions on Hartley Pensions.
On 11 July, the company asked the UK regulator to enforce requirements preventing it from accepting ongoing contributions into self-invested personal pension (Sipp) and small self-administered schemes (Ssas) that it administers and temporarily stop transfers or switches of Sipps or Ssass until 22 July at the earliest.
The FCA’s agreement means that clients of Hartley Pensions cannot currently make any new or ongoing contributions into their Sipp or Ssas, or move their Sipp or Ssas to another provider.
This also means that if a client’s request to move was received prior to the requirements being imposed but the Sipp or Ssas had not been moved yet, the request will not be processed.
The requirements have been “imposed due to a number of serious operational and regulatory issues that the firm are attempting to deal with and is intended to protect all of the firm’s customers”, the FCA said.
It added: “As the firm cannot continue to provide the service expected by clients, it is seeking to find another Sipp operator able to take over the operation of Hartley Pensions.”
This comes several months after the FCA told Hartley Pensions it could not accept any new clients and placed a no new business restriction on the firm on 4 March 2022.
Client pension pots
Hartley Pensions will be writing to clients to explain what the new restrictions mean for them.
If its clients are regularly withdrawing money from their Sipp, they can continue to do this, and pension payments will continue to be made.
The FCA said that Sipp or Ssas assets are unaffected by the restrictions. They are held on trust by separate trustee companies.
The regulator has told clients that they should reach out to their financial adviser to understand how the restrictions impacts them.
Hartley Pensions remains authorised by the FCA and subject to its rules.
The watchdog said: “We are continuing to engage with the firm in relation to the issues it is facing, but, in line with standard FCA practice, we do not comment on individual firms. All customers should remain alert to the possibility of fraud.”
International Adviser has contacted Hartley Pensions and its parent company Wilton Group for a comment, but they did not reply in time for publication.
Management change
In May 2022, pension and investment services provider Wilton Group hired Richard Valentine as chief executive of Hartley Pensions.
He joined from pension provider Curtis Banks where he served as chief operating officer, and prior to that, he was a director at James Hay Partnership.
