Adviser calls for FSA ruling on Barclays
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An adviser fighting for compensation for Barclays clients who lost money in the Aviva global balanced income fund has written to the FSA urging it to review the issue under its wider implications regime.
Park House Financial Services partner Richard Davis says Barclays’ advice to unsophisticated investors to transfer savings into the fund, which has received widespread media coverage since it was revealed in Money Marketing in April, is bringing the financial services industry into “disrepute”.
Barclays advised clients approaching or in retirement to transfer long-term savings into the single specialist fund. The value of the fund plunged by almost 50 per cent in the 12 months to March 2009.
The bank has admitted it erroneously categorised the fund as balanced rather than adventurous between July and November 2007.
Davis says he knows of a large number of investors who have submitted complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service and he expects many more to follow suit.
In the letter sent to the FSA, Davis says: “I believe that Barclays must acknowledge that they had a duty to report the fund’s reclassification in 2007 to all investors in the fund and compensate those who have lost out through their failure to do this.
“The Financial Ombudsman cannot and should not be expected to answer all these complaints individually. I believe a ruling from yourselves on this matter would help to resolve it promptly.”
The FSA refused to comment on the issue.
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Readers' comments (1)
Julian Stevens | 28 May 2009 11:32 am
Adviser calls for FSA ruling on Barclays
The FSA usually refuses "to comment on individual cases" but now, it seems, the FSA simply declines to comment on anything it pleases. But this is a hot potato and evidently quite a tricky one for the FSA ~ how can it possibly deny that it should come down on Barclays like the ton of proverbial hot bricks? What's it waiting for? If an IFA firm had done something similar, you can bet your boots the FSA would have no such reservations, least of all about offering comment from someone like Margaret Cole, reassuring the world as to what a tough and decisive regulator the FSA is. Unfortunately, the FSA is also widely perceived to be an extremely biased and selective regulator which is unhealthy in the extreme. As usual, one set of rules for the banks but quite another for the IFA sector.
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