Pensions provider in administration at request of FCA

ABRISTOL pensions provider has been put into administration at the request of the UK’s financial regulator.

Hartley Pensions was stopped by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from conducting new business earlier this year, including accepting new clients.

The FCA imposed restrictions on the firm due to a number of “serious operational, financial and regulatory issues” within the business. The FCA has now said Hartley Pensions needs to enter an insolvency process in the interest of customers.

Peter Kubik and Brian Johnson, of UHY Hacker Young, have been appointed as joint administrators. Bosses at Hartley - a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) provider - sought professional insolvency advice, which resulted in them acknowledging the company was insolvent and no longer able to operate outside of an insolvency process.

Hartley Pensions was founded in 1981 and joined the Wilton Group of companies in 2015. It manages around 16,000 self-invested personal pension (SIPP) and small selfadministered pension scheme (SSAS) accounts. The joint administrators will be writing to Hartley Pensions’ customers to explain what the insolvency means for them and what action they should take.

The administrators will continue to administer the customer accounts in line with the requirements of the FCA, it said. Existing pension assets are held by trustee firms which have not entered into administration. The administrators will shortly undertake a reconciliation of the funds held by those trustees and will then be in contact with customers after that.

Due to the requirements of the FCA, account holders cannot currently make new pension contributions or transfer into or out of an account managed by Hartley.

However, account holders are able to draw down funds from their pensions, trade investments and request their pension commencement lump sum amounts as normal.

The administrators are now in discussions with a number of different parties with a view to them taking on the management of Hartley’s client accounts.

“The aim is that once a new provider has been found, an agreement will be put in place for the accounts to be transferred to the new provider as soon as possible,” the administrators said in a statement.