Strange ins and outs of shifty savings site
Investment firm’s merry dance with the UK’s financial regulator
ACCORDING to Google’s new anti-scams policy it will only carry adverts for savings products if they are placed by firms registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.
A fine idea, but one that might not always be working in practice, judging by the hokey-cokey saga of Stem Wealth.
This was promoted with Google Ads promising: “A simple way to invest and secure your future”, despite not being included in the list of firms authorised by the FCA.
Then, on Monday last week, Stem Wealth did appear in the list. Three days later it was out again. Stem Wealth’s website stated that it was a trading name of UK Tax Efficient Investments Limited, which was included in the list of authorised firms on August 17 and taken out on October 7.
This company’s sole director is Angela Orchard, who lives in Spain according to her Facebook page and has never been a company director before apparently suddenly deciding at the age of 52 to run an investment advice firm.
Which prompted me to ask her if she really was the person running the show, but she has not got back to me.
A saver who replied to the Google Ad for Stem Wealth was contacted by a sales rep who previously worked for an outfit called
Your Options
Limited – in fact, the rep still used the same phone number he’d had at Your Options, which flogged high-risk savings bonds through Google Ads.
The director of Your Options is 37-year-old Ashley Parkin-Beacher, who is a Facebook friend of Angela Orchard, and they once shared the same Bradford address. So could he be involved in the Stem Wealth saga? Sadly, he too has not got back to discuss this, or the reasons why the FCA suspended his youroptions.co.uk domain.
He is also a director of Parkin Beacher Limited, which was fined £50,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office in August for making illegal marketing calls to people about their pensions.
It gets even messier.
The way that Stem Wealth and UK Tax Efficient Investments got on the FCA register was by becoming trading names of an authorised
Fine idea may not work given hokey-cokey saga of Stem Wealth
company called Integral Asset Management Limited.
Integral Asset Management director Ben Price denies being responsible for this.
He says they employed compliance consultancy I-Fact, which offers “rapid FCA recognition”, and claims that I-Fact put Stem Wealth and UK Tax Efficient Investments on the FCA register as trading names of Integral Asset Management.
“It was something we were not happy with and we terminated our relationship with I-Fact,” said Mr Price.
Rubbish, says the chairman of I-Fact, John Derry-Collins, who says that Integral Asset Management was never their client, and had been rejected because their compliance was “way offtrack”.
“We listed what they would have to do to change and what it would cost, invoiced for our time, and walked away,” he said.
“As far as we are concerned that’s the end of it. I haven’t a clue who Stem Wealth and UK Tax Efficient Investments are.”
Stem Wealth and UK Tax Efficient Investments have now been put on the FCA’s consumer alert list of firms to avoid.
The regulator has also slapped a range of restrictions on what Integral Asset Management is allowed to do, including banning it from advertising online or adding any new trading names without prior approval.