The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has fined Now Pensions and its trustee board a total of £100,000 for failing to report “significant events and breaches of law” relating to important communications that were not sent to members.
Some of the failings in question were not reported to the regulator, while others were but not “as soon as reasonably practicable”, as required by the master trust authorisation regime.
Now Pensions and Now Pension Trustee were both handed £50,000 penalties for the historic failures.
According to the regulator, the master trust failed to send more than 80,000 statutory communications to members and did not report these as significant events to TPR.
The communications related to auto-enrolment rights, and the failure to send them resulted in financial detriment for some members as they were “denied the opportunity to make choices over their auto-enrolment options”.
Gaucho Rasmussen, executive director of regulatory compliance at TPR, said: “The master trust authorisation regime created a safer, more robust and sustainable market for the millions who save into these schemes. And, as this case proves, when things go wrong, we will take tough action to protect savers.
“Now Pensions has since satisfied us it has made changes to enhance its processes around reporting so TPR can continue to manage risks effectively, ensuring the security and quality of the scheme for its members.”
It is not the first time Now Pensions has come under regulatory scrutiny. It was fined £70,000 in 2018 for failing to collect and invest contributions and failing to inform members of this error. A year earlier, it temporarily withdrew itself from the regulator’s list of approved master trusts after issues arose with its administration. After addressing these issues it was fully authorised by TPR in 2019.
A spokesperson for Now Pensions said: “NPL and NPTL have today confirmed action by the Pensions Regulator resulting from the way in which historic statutory communication failures relating to Now Pensions were reported to TPR between 2020 and 2022.
“NPL and NPTL took appropriate steps to correct these matters for affected members when we identified them. We have also enhanced the Scheme’s reporting processes and TPR has confirmed they are satisfied with the enhancements we have made.”
This article has been updated to include a statement from Now Pensions.
