MPs press FSA chief over mis-selling
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE HEAD of the Government's new super-regulator for the financial services industry faced a grilling yesterday from MPs over the pensions industry's attempts to clear up the mis-selling scandal.
Howard Davies, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, was reporting to the Treasury select committee on the progress of the review in personal pensions mis-selling.
Mr Davies said he was "100 per cent confident" that the industry would be "pretty close" to meeting its deadline of reviewing all mis-selling cases by the end of this year.
To date, 644,891 mis-selling cases have been identified. By March this year, 67 per cent had been reviewed with 227,000 offered redress - generally financial compensation. At the same point last year, only 15 per cent of known cases had been reviewed.
Mr Davies said the FSA and other regulatory bodies had been instrumental in speeding up the process. But MPs questioned the 211,000 cases which had been reviewed but with no redress or compensation offered.
Mr Davies defended his position, saying the review process encouraged as many people as possible to come forward but it was inherent in this system that many of these people would not have been mis-sold pensions. He said he knew of at least 600 review cases that were now with the ombudsman.
Quentin Davies, the Conservative MP, pressed Mr Davies on the fines imposed by the FSA on life offices and pensions firms. He asked whether the fines in some cases would be paid for from companies' profits, with the result that policyholders again would lose by seeing diminishing returns on invested pensions funds.
Mr Davies said at present the FSA did not have the powers to levy fines directly on company executives.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments