UK financial watchdog proposes contingent charging ban on pensions advice

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's markets watchdog has proposed banning financial advisors from getting paid only when a customer buys a pension, known as contingent charging.

The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed the ban in order to crack down on conflicts of interest in the pensions sector, where consumers have recently been given "freedoms" to move their pots of saved cash between schemes or take out their money.

"The FCA has proposed that advisers will be required to demonstrate why any scheme they recommend is more suitable than the consumer’s workplace pension scheme," the FCA said in a statement on Tuesday.

(Reporting By Huw Jones, editing by Sinead Cruise)