St James’s Place Wealth Management to pay back clients up to £426million

St James’s Place Wealth Management has put aside £426million to pay back clients who did not receive the services they were promised.

The Wealth Management company, which aims to provide clients with advice to help them manage their finances effectively, said it noticed a surge in customer complaints at the end of last year.

Some of the issues customers raised include SJP’s failure to disclose ongoing fees before clients signed up to the service, and lack of ‘ongoing advice services’ despite customers paying for them.

The Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates financial firms and markets in the UK by protecting consumers, states that financial services should be honest and transparent with their clients about what costs they will pay for the services, including ongoing charges. The FCA also states that clients should be informed of the cost of services both verbally and in writing.

In 2017, the Which? team spoke to 12 advisers under the guise that they were looking for independent advice on around £100,000 investible assets, but they were soon alerted to issues.

Despite SJP being one of the UK’s biggest providers with nearly 600,000 clients, investigations by consumer champion Which? alleged that in some cases, they were failing to comply with some important rules and regulations.

Last week, Boss Mark FitzPatrick apologised for “getting it wrong”. He said:

“In the rare occasion where advisers have not serviced clients and clients have been charged for that, I have no issue with saying to the client, ‘We are very sorry, we got that wrong.’ Because that shouldn’t be the case.”

He promised that he would “fix issues” and said: “I am fixated on doing the right thing for clients. If you look after clients well, everything else falls into line.”

Since 2021, SJP has said it used a new system from Salesforce to give them more information to monitor the service provided to clients, and expects the claims to be a “historic issue”.

In October, St James Place also announced plans to overhaul its fee structure, agreeing to cap advice and fund charges in order to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority’s new ‘fair value’ rules.

It also agreed to remove controversial exit fees for clients leaving the business early.

Customer complaints against SJP

A law firm has said it has submitted over 15,000 claims on behalf of SJP clients who have been affected by the poor service and has won back in excess of £12million in compensation since.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, St James’s Place said:

“We take all complaints very seriously and each will be considered on its individual merits. We know that clients value what SJP offers and, while we take comfort in strong levels of client satisfaction, advocacy and a retention rate of 95.3 per cent, it is important that clients receive the services they pay for.

“That is why we have committed to reviewing our records to the start of 2018 to ensure clients received the services from their adviser that they paid for. If for some reason they didn’t, or we can’t find evidence that they did, we are going to refund the ongoing service charges.”

I think I have been affected, what should I do?

Chief executive Mark FitzPatrick urged any customers who think they might be eligible for a refund to get in touch directly with St James’s Place.

He said: “We are setting up infrastructure and support to help clients understand what it is they should be expecting from their adviser.”

SJP said it would be writing to investors to let them know if they might have a claim. Further advice will be made available on their website and more details on exactly how to claim will be included in the letter that is sent to eligible customers by St James’s Place.

Further reading

St. James’s Place Wealth Management – Oakwood Solicitors

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