The regulated financial advice company, Serenus Consulting Ltd, gave its clients relating to deferred benefit that were held in a previous employer’s occupational pension scheme.
After the company was ordered by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to pay its clients compensation for giving unsuitable advice relating to pension transfers, it went into a voluntary arrangement.
Introducers That Weren’t Regulated
The FOS found the company to be accepting clients from various third party introducers that weren’t regulated and selling them investments that were also unregulated and high risk. They included investment opportunities in the likes of Dolphin Capital and Store First.
James Bell is the director of Serenus Consulting Ltd as well as Dominion Financial Management Ltd. This is another company that is both regulated and authorised to provide its clients with advice pertaining to pension transfers. Both of the companies that Mr Bell is director of were forced to stop performing all of their regulated investment activities that involved both none standard and none mainstream assets. This included assets such as discretionary fund management and other types of portfolio or form layering.
None standard and none mainstream assets include those that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consider not to be a standard type of asset. In order for an asset to be considered as standard, it must be able to be fairly and accurately valued on a consistent basis and can be realised within a 30 day period.
Transferring Pensions
Although the Serenus Consulting Ltd website is not currently working, the Dominion Financial Management website continues to promote the company’s services. It is offering financial advice to help clients who are under the age of 55 with defined benefit transfers into self-invested pension plans (SIPPs). Doing this facilitated the transfer into an Australian based qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme (QROPS) for when they eventually reached the age of 55.
Dominion Financial Management claim to be the experts in the area of planning – something that the vast majority of UK based independent financial advisors don’t do. If you are someone who was advised to transfer their pension into a QROPS when living in the UK, then you may want to partake in a free consultation with a member of our team in order to have your transaction(s) reviewed. Even if you live outside of the UK, the transfer was still likely to have been unsuitable.
Even with your investments performing well, you have still lost highly valuable guarantees and were likely mis sold the pension.
Seek Claims Advice Now
We offer a free to use pension consulting service where we can provide you with expert claims advice. You should contact us quickly though as there may be time barring restrictions in place. There is no obligation to use our services, but if you do, know that our fees are very reasonable as we do not purchase client data from the very companies involved with your claim.
