AJ Bell, the platform and SIPP provider, has urged the FCA to think again about proposed changes to pension transfers which would see more ‘friction’ added to non-advised transfers.
AJ Bell chief executive Michael Summersgill has warned that the changes would be “anti-consumer and anti-competitive.”
The FCA is set to require firms receiving pension transfer requests to gather more information from the person’s old scheme and present it to them before initiating the transfer, unless they opt-out, AJ Bell said.
AJ Bell is concerned that the reforms risk significantly delaying transfers between FCA-regulated pension schemes and will not apply to workplace pension schemes, making them “completely unworkable” in their current form.
The company says there does not appear to be, “clear justification” for the changes which it believes will undermine years of progress on improving pension transfer times.
The regulator has been urged to go back to the drawing board to focus on improving engagement with annual benefit statements, including exploring the role the new Pensions Dashboard could play.
The FCA says it "remains open to alternative proposals", according to reports.
Michael Summersgill, CEO of AJ Bell, said: “These proposals are anti-consumer, anti-competitive and represent the worst kind of regulatory intervention.
“Without presenting any clear justification whatsoever, the FCA has set out plans to shut down consumer choice and put barriers in the way of people who do the right thing and engage with their retirement finances. This is all the more baffling given the regulator has spent years rightly focused on improving pension transfer times – including identifying slow transfers as a key harm it wanted to address as recently as 2023*.
“To make matters worse, these proposals will only apply to pensions regulated by the FCA, meaning the proposed 10-day time limit for firms to provide the information needed to process a transfer will not apply to workplace pension schemes that don’t come under the FCA’s remit. Ironically, this is where some of the worst offenders when it comes to slow pension transfer times reside.
“This is a classic case of a solution looking for a problem that simply does not exist. There are vanishingly few policies that contain guaranteed benefits that could be lost during a transfer and pension finding services often used by people consolidating retirement pots usually flag these to customers anyway.”
“The contrast between this ill-thought-out intervention and the measured, collaborative, evidence-based approach taken by the regulator to Targeted Support reforms is glaring. The FCA needs to go back to the drawing board here and engage with firms on solutions that do not risk causing substantial consumer harm through delayed transfers. Annual benefit statements are the natural solution, with the anticipated launch of the Pensions Dashboard providing an obvious platform to allow people to compare information on their different pensions.”
*Source: Our platforms supervision strategy: portfolio letter
The FCA’s Consultation Paper 25/39: Adapting our requirements for a changing pensions market, closed on Thursday 12 February 2026.