The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned a former Quilter adviser from working in finance and fined him £742,700, accusing him of "recklessly betraying his responsibilities" by offering pensions advice he was not qualified to give.

Daniel Thomas, whose firm DPT Financial Solutions was an approved representative of FTSE 250 wealth manager Quilter, received a lifetime ban from the financial industry after giving clients advice on their defined benefit (DB) pensions, the City watchdog said on Thursday.

The regulator found that over five years Thomas misled more than 50 clients, recommending they transfer out of DB pensions — arrangements in which savers receive a guaranteed income for the rest of their life, loosely based on their final salary. By advising customers to switch, Thomas earned more than £173,000 in fees.

Thomas, whose Bridgend-based financial advice firm was terminated from the Quilter network more than six years ago, gave advice he was neither qualified nor allowed to give, according to the FCA.

Under FCA rules, advisers must hold a specific pension transfer qualification before recommending DB transfers, and any saver with transfer values above £30,000 is required to take regulated advice before switching. The rules were tightened in the wake of pension freedom reforms introduced in 2015, which sharply increased demand for transfers and, with it, regulator concern about unsuitable advice — a scrutiny that intensified after the British Steel Pension Scheme episode, where thousands of steelworkers were advised to move out of their DB scheme.

"When you advise someone on their pension, you hold their future in your hands," said Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement at the FCA. "Mr Thomas recklessly betrayed that responsibility."

"We will not stop acting against those ignoring our rules and unfairly putting people and their hard-earned money at risk," she added.

Thomas 'repeatedly misled pension providers'

It is rarely in savers' interest to move their pension arrangements out of DB pensions. Their successor — defined contribution pensions — generally pay out less to customers, and their returns depend more heavily on the performance of the funds in which the savings are invested. The FCA has long said that for most people keeping a DB pension is likely to be the better outcome.

Thomas has appealed the decision, meaning the FCA's findings are currently provisional. The watchdog said the adviser "repeatedly misled clients and pension providers" about his qualifications, destroyed client records, and failed to cooperate with the regulator's probe. Where advisers cannot pay, misadvised consumers have in past cases been able to pursue compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, though any redress route here would depend on the outcome of the appeal and the firms involved.

The FCA made no findings against Quilter as part of the ruling. Thomas was also found to have provided misleading information to the wealth management firm — whose sprawling network includes more than 1,300 advisory firms — about his involvement in the pension transfer cases.

Quilter declined to comment.

Source: FCA decision notice (PDF)