15 May 2023
Quilter plc (the Company) notes today’s publication of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) decision that concludes its enforcement investigation into whether Lighthouse Advisory Services Limited (Lighthouse) breached certain FCA requirements in connection with advising on and arranging defined benefit pension transfers in the period from 1 April 2015 to 30 April 2019.
Although the FCA found that Lighthouse provided some unsuitable defined benefit pension transfer advice to customers during this period, the FCA has decided not to impose any financial penalty on Lighthouse following its investigation.
The defined benefit pension transfer advice that gave rise to the FCA’s decision was provided by Lighthouse prior to the acquisition of Lighthouse Group plc (Lighthouse’s parent company) by the Company’s subsidiary, Quilter Financial Planning Limited, in June 2019.
As the FCA has acknowledged in its decision, Lighthouse provided very high levels of co-operation in relation to the FCA’s investigation and Quilter, on its own initiative, promptly paid redress to customers who received unsuitable defined benefit pension transfer advice from Lighthouse and sustained losses as a result of that advice. In addition and since acquiring Lighthouse, Quilter has entirely replaced Lighthouse’s senior management team and its internal processes in relation to defined benefit pension transfer advice with those of the Quilter Group.
Quilter’s Chief Executive Officer, Steven Levin, comments: “Although the relevant advice pre-dated our acquisition of Lighthouse, we have fulfilled our commitment to ensuring that Lighthouse has responded to this situation in a way that is consistent with our values. We are pleased that the FCA recognised our co-operation with its investigation and that we have proactively and promptly paid redress to affected customers.”
