Friends Life

The "flabbergasted" boss of a national IFA has revealed the business received an unexpected 200,000% increase in a fee payment from a provider following an accounting gaffe.

A retiree's complaint against Friends Life over its failure to pay his annuities on time for a decade has been rejected by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), despite FOS and Friends admitting the delays are poor customer service.

Billionaire Peter Hargreaves has dropped ten places on the Sunday Times Rich List losing about £496m from his personal fortune in the past 12 months.

Clive Balchin had been with Sesame for 18 years but an ever more stringent approach to compliance pushed him to hand in his notice - just days before the group announced it was shutting its investment network.

Friends Life will refer new clients who seek retirement advice to national advice firm Foster Denovo under a new deal agreed between the two firms.

An exasperated Friends Life pension customer is taking his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) after what he said is a decade of poor service from the life company.

Countdown to 6 April: The line up in The Great Pension Reforms Race

Provider Friends Life has set out its proposal for reform of the pension tax relief system to "introduce fairness" to the system and incentivise people to save.

Restricted adviser network Sesame would be broke and unable to trade without the continued financial support of its parent company Friends Life, Aviva has said in a note to shareholders ahead of its planned acquisition of the provider.

Aviva's £5.1bn acquisition of Friends Life could see as many as 1,500 jobs cut, the company has said.