Owned by Brian Boyd, The Financial Factory has been responsible for introducing many of their clients to the prospect of putting money into Harlequin Properties through giving them free trips to their resorts in the Caribbean.

However, the company didn’t explain to them that these investments were unregulated and high risk, and so were only suitable for experienced investors or high net worth individuals. The company also failed to explain that the other company involved (The Property Factory) wasn’t authorised to give advice and was not regulated.

Final salary pension transfers were arranged using third party companies like 1 Stop Financial Solutions but the company owned by Mr Boyd is now closing down. According to the Financial Ombudsman Service, The Financial Factory stopped trading in 2016 and owned no assets. Despite of this, Brian Boyd continued to give financial advice to clients and even collected trail fees for this.

The company asked for the cancellation of its Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation, meaning that it was no longer allowed to perform any activities that are regulated. Many of the company’s clients were given a false reassurance that an income would still be provided through Harlequin investments and Brian Boyd even helped clients to get back some of their losses. This was done in order to prevent them from making a complaint against The Financial Factory.

It was ruled by the ombudsman that the company acted negligently during the process of arranging transfers of pension into self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs). It was also found that The Financial Factory churned pensions, bonds, and ISAs so that all of its clients were treated fairly. Churning involves either the unnecessary or excessive changing of investments in order to produce commission.

If you believe that you were given the advice to either surrender or sell one / multiple investments and then replace them with something that had similar benefits, then churning may have happened. Any former clients that have received an email from NI Alternative Investments looking for business should have their case reviewed to see if they were given advice that was unsuitable,

Any advice that the company has given since 2016 is unregulated, thus leaving you with the protection provided by the FCA.