Sipp Trade Body AMPS, of which Intelligent Partnership is a member, is leading the drive for an industry standard.

Life companies and SIPP providers plan to work together in a bid to create an industry standard for SIPP illustrations, in the face of increasing regulation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

In its quarterly retail distribution review paper published in March, the FSA proposed more onerous illustration requirements for SIPPs, including projections for all investments held in them.

The drive for an industry standard is being led by SIPP trade body the Association of Member Directed Pension Schemes (Amps) and has the support of insurers Standard Life and LV= and SIPP providers AJ Bell and Rowanmoor.

Amps chairman Andrew Roberts  said an industry-agreed standard for illustrations could prevent the FSA bringing in rules that would be costly for SIPP providers and create lengthy and potentially inaccurate documentation for consumers.

‘Can the SIPP industry come up with a better solution than the FSA? We need a document to compare one SIPP provider with another,’ he said.

Amps will hold a roundtable discussion in mid-April after which it will submit a paper to the FSA.

Original Article : CityWire/New Model Advisor

by William Robins on Apr 05, 2012