As reported, Harbour Pensions is a recently-established trust company that has launched a Maltese QROP Scheme to accommodate pension transfers from the UK.
It is offering both a full QROPS and a ‘lite’ option for those with smaller pension pots.
Justin Caffrey, managing director of Harbour, said Erhardt, whom he has known “for many years”, would help Harbour to expand its global reach, and in particular would “focus on our QROPS and soon-to-be-launched US QROPS product”.
Erhardt was not immediately available for comment. However, in a statement issued by Harbour, Erhardt said the company offered a “well- run, independent and very competitively priced offering”, and said he was “delighted” to work with Caffrey and his Harbour team.
Key industry figure
Erhardt has been a well-known figure in the QROPS industry ever since qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes were created by the UK’s A-Day pension legislation, which took effect on 7 April 2006.
He helped STM – a division of AIM-listed STM Group – to become a major force in the QROPS industry, initially from Gibraltar, and later, out of Malta.
While in Gibraltar, he served as chairman of Gibraltar’s Association of Pension Fund Administrators during a three-year-period during which scheme administrators in the jurisdiction suspended pension transfers, after HMRC expressed concerns over how pensions there were taxed.
Initially based in Gibraltar, Erhardt had increasingly been spending more time in Malta, where STM was one of the first pension fund administrators to launch a QROPS in 2009, after the UK first recognised the island as an approved QROPS jurisdiction.
Most recently he is understood to be spending more time as well in the US.
In addition to Erhardt, other QROPS industry experts who have signed on to work with Caffrey include Richard Garrod, a director of Confiance Pensions, a Guernsey based financial services company, and David Mason, a former director at STM.
