Police Pension Scheme 1987 · CAS-35437-S7K1

CAS-35437-S7K1

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Dr K

Scheme Police Pension Scheme 1987 (the Scheme)

Respondent Metropolitan Police Service (MP)

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties The sequence of events is not in dispute, so I have only set out the salient points. I acknowledge there were other exchanges of information between all the parties.

Dr K is in receipt of a pension from the Scheme which is an occupational pension arrangement.

Dr K retired in 2004 and began receiving his Scheme pension. In 2006, he emigrated to Belize. His pension payments were paid into the Heritage International Bank in Belize.

On 29 October 2015, Dr K wanted to redirect his pension payments and so provided new account details to Equiniti Paymaster, the administrator for the Scheme. Heritage International Bank used the services of Aston Currency Management in London to facilitate the transfer of monies from the UK to Belize. Aston Currency Management in turn used the services of Ziraat Bank in Turkey to process the payments. The new bank details Dr K provided were for an account with Ziraat Bank in Turkey.

1 CAS-35437-S7K1 The administrator amended its system with Dr K’s new payment details. However, from December 2015 to July 2016 Dr K did not receive his monthly pension payments to his account with Heritage International Bank in Belize.

In late June or early July, Dr K queried the missing payments. He subsequently provided new payment details and his payments have been received correctly since then.

Dr K made his own attempts to trace the missing funds, but as he was unable to do so he made a formal complaint to MP on 20 March 2018. He asked MP to reimburse the pension payments he did not receive between December 2015 and July 2016.

On 16 April 2018, MP responded to say that it had considered his complaint and decided that it was not liable for reimbursing the missing payments. It said the administrator submitted Dr K’s new bank details to the Scheme’s bank, Citibank, who confirmed that the details had been accepted and uploaded to its database. The payments were then made by SWIFT from the Citibank account. It provided copies of the information it had received from Citibank pertaining to these payments.

Dr K contacted Ziraat Bank regarding his payments. Ziraat Bank emailed Dr K on 7 August 2018 to say that the responsibility for tracing the funds lay with the Scheme administrators and referred Dr K back to MP.

On 22 November 2018, MP sent Dr K details of the Scheme’s stage one Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). MP reiterated that it considered all procedures to have been followed correctly. MP also disagreed with Ziraat Bank’s position that it was responsible for tracing the lost funds. MP noted that none of the transactions had been returned and so it should be the receiving bank’s responsibility to trace the funds. MP believed that Ziraat Bank was liable for the loss of the funds.

On 3 December 2018, Dr K sent the necessary forms required to review the matter under stage one of the IDRP. He was told a response would be provided within two months.

On 13 February 2019, MP sent its IDRP stage one decision. It said the administrator had used the bank details provided by Dr K on 29 October 2015 and sent the payments to the account he had nominated. The payments were not rejected by the receiving bank. MP concluded that the administrator had acted in accordance with Dr K’s instructions and payments had been made in line with the Citibank’s mandate. It did not uphold the complaint although it acknowledged delays with its service and in its response to Dr K.

On 21 February 2019, Dr K requested that his complaint be considered under stage two of the IDRP. He was told that a response would be provided within two months.

On 18 October 2019, MP provided its stage two IDRP response. It apologised for the time taken to respond, which it said was caused by a delay in obtaining additional information. MP reiterated that it considered the payments to have been processed

2 CAS-35437-S7K1 correctly and in line with Dr K’s wishes. It had obtained copies of the transfer confirmations from Citibank which showed the payments were made to the correct IBAN account number and SWIFT code. MP also tried to contact Ziraat Bank on a number of occasions to trace the missing funds, but it refused to release any information to a third party which it said it could not do under Turkish Banking Law.

In November 2019, MP received further information from Citibank. This showed a “credit confirmation” for the January 2016 payment that confirmed Ziraat Bank had received the payment. MP liaised further with Citibank who confirmed that this was the only month that it had received a credit confirmation.

Dr K’s position

MP’s position

Adjudicator’s Opinion

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Ombudsman’s decision

I do not uphold Dr K’s complaint.

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Anthony Arter

Pensions Ombudsman 4 November 2022

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