The Pensions Regulator

Apr

Accountant trustee jailed for plundering company pension scheme

An accountant has been jailed for more than three years after he fraudulently took more than £290,000 from a pension scheme. Roger William Bessent was a trustee and administrator for the Focusplay Retirement Benefit Scheme but transferred savers’ money into struggling and new businesses he part owned and which were run by himself, his family and a client. He now

Apr

AE pension contributions set to rise

From 6 April, the minimum contributions employers and their staff must pay into their automatic enrolment workplace pension scheme will increase. The employer minimum contribution will rise from 2% to 3%, while the staff contribution increases from 3% to 5%. This means the total contribution overall goes up from 5% to 8%, in a process known as ‘phasing’. Overseeing body

Feb

Keeping pensions safe for the millions newly saving

A report published demonstrates how The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is working to make sure members’ savings stay safe. TPR’s latest quarterly compliance and enforcement bulletin follows news that 10 million people are newly saving or saving more thanks to automatic enrolment. The bulletin demonstrates the wide ranging action TPR is taking to protect savers and ensure staff receive the pensions they

Feb

Fraudster families running multimillion pound pension scams

Organised crime groups led by married couples or families are running pension scams worth millions of pounds. Intelligence gathered by members of the multi-agency Project Bloom group, which was set up to tackle pension scams, indicates that a number of “fraudster families” are targeting pension holders. Criminal investigations involving regulators, government agencies and police forces are currently ongoing into a

Feb

TPR action leads to NOW: Pensions overhauling its administration system

Demands from the Pensions Regulator (TPR) for NOW: Pensions to overhaul its administration system, have led to the pension contributions of hundreds of thousands of people being collected and invested. In April 2016, an estimated £18 million of pensions contributions, affecting over 265,000 people, had not been collected by NOW: Pensions. There were ongoing problems with the collection, and also

Jan

Scam victims lose more than £1m each to fraudsters

Some victims of pension scams have lost more than £1 million in savings each to fraudsters, new statistics have revealed. Intelligence gathered by members of the multi-agency Project Bloom group, which was set up to tackle pension scams, has found some people who had managed to put away more than £1 million have lost their retirement funds to criminals. New

Dec

Company chief executive banned from being a trustee

The chief executive of a company that packages some of Britain’s most famous brands has been convicted of refusing to give information to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). Thomas Christopher Wrigley, who was both the CEO and major shareholder of Discovery Flexibles Limited as well as being the chair of trustees for the company’s pension scheme, repeatedly refused to comply with

Dec

Scam awareness campaign prompts tens of thousands of pension holders to seek information

The number of people seeking information about pension scams has soared since the launch of the first joint campaign by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) this summer. In the 55 days before the launch around 31,000 people visited the ScamSmart website at an average of 562 per day. In the 55 days after the launch

Sep

Milestone for workplace pensions regulation as TPR launches new approach

An increasing number of workplace pension schemes will come under greater scrutiny from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) from next month as part of a significant shift in its approach to protect savers. To reflect major changes in the political, economic and pensions landscape, TPR will be working proactively with more pension schemes through a new range of interventions to address

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