The FCA has finalised its guidance to firms offering annuity comparisons online after a review found 92% of websites failed to be clear and fair.
All of the sites inspected as part of the FCA probe raised concerns, officials said. The investigation, which reported in March, concluded that key information and risk warnings were "often missing or insufficiently prominent".
It reported that information on 12 of the 13 websites failed to satisfy the key requirement to be 'fair, clear, and not misleading', for example describing the service as 'free' when commission would be received by the firm.
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The FCA consulted on a set of guidelines based on these findings.
Today, it published its final guidance to firms offering annuity comparisons online, having received 12 responses to its consultation.

The key points the FCA issued today in its guidance were:

Firms with annuity comparison websites must ensure that information on their websites is fair, clear and not misleading under the rules in COBS 4 and our Principles for Businesses. This includes, in the FCA's view, having sufficient information and relevant warnings on their websites in relation to the following:
 what the open market option means for consumers in terms of being able to shop around and change provider
 any relevant cancellation periods, and that following this period, the decision to purchase an annuity is usually final and cannot be changed
 that the level of annuity income is based on how much someone has saved into their pension and varies from person to person
 how this annuity income may vary according to the type of annuity product purchased, for example with escalating or index-linked annuities
 that single and joint annuities offer different benefits and guarantees, and in
particular that single life annuities provide no further income for surviving partners (unless a guarantee is purchased)

For the full guidance click HERE.

In its original report the FCA found good practice used on the websites in the presentation of alternative options to buying an annuity, such as deferring or pension drawdown, and the use of jargon-free language.
The FCA only reviewed websites that offer a full online annuity quotation rather than a telephone call back, because it wanted to assess the whole process from the consumer's point of view and be able to examine the financial promotions in their full context.