Combating Pension Scams

The Code of Good Practice

Pension scams can be damaging to individuals, pension schemes and society generally. People are tempted by such offers, but many find themselves transferring their benefits to dubious and risky unregulated investment structures or their benefits simply disappear. The pensions industry therefore called for guidance to help share good practice and help reduce the risk of successful scams. We developed and launched the first Code of Good Practice for use by all in the industry in 2015,on 22 June 2018, we published Version 2.0 and on 10 June 2019 version 2.1 was released. Version 2.2 is effective from 1st April 2021 and contains:

A Code of Good Practice (the full Code which incorporates all of the following 5 documents):

Framework Document
Practitioner Guide
Resources Pack
Technical Guide
Summary of Changes

I am grateful to the members of the Industry Group and all the other organisations and individuals who freely gave their time to help write and review the Code. I am also grateful to the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion for providing the foreword to the Code.

Margaret Snowdon OBE, Chairman of the Pension Scams Industry Group (PSIG)

The current Code can be downloaded HERE or via Dropbox below, and is available via Aries Insight http://www.ariesinsight.co.uk/psig It will also soon will be available from the ABI, AMPS, TISA and PLSA websites:

The Code is for guidance only and does not purport to constitute legal advice. The Code is not exhaustive and nothing in the Code can be relied upon as evidence of compliance with any other legal or regulatory requirement. The Code relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments
Following the Code does not relieve a party from its legal or regulatory obligations and following the Code might not prevent a claim being brought against a party.
The Code will be reviewed and updated on a regular basis to ensure it reflects current risks and good practice.

You can download the 5 components of the Full Code individually from Dropbox here (or if you can’t access Dropbox, please request a copy via our contact page):