Momentum Trustees, dont know the meaning of the word! Sadly, we are very disillusioned with this whole pension thing. So far we have had no apology from any of the companies involved in this disastrous debacle which has left our future in tatters. Our pension has lost well over 130K euros in around 3 years after being invested into high risk structured notes which should not be used for pensions, following our original "low" risk having been altered to high without our knowledge.. I really hope, that all the companies involved, Momentum Trustees included, will do the right thing and put all those involved in the CWM mess back on track and refund all our lost pension funds. One can only live in hope :(
Start collecting reviews today
Claim your business to immediately update business information, respond to reviews, and more!
awful awful awful stay as far away from these awful people as you can they charge loads of money for doing nothing with my money i never normally do reviews and never negative ones but this company is a money grabbing firm who will charge you for doing zero with your hard earned cash
Very Glad the Momentum are MiFID II regulated. Now no one can be fooled by unscrupulous amateur advisers pretending to experts ever again. Goodbye to the likes of CWM.
For some reason I can't give zero stars and have to give 1 star as a rating - this company doesn't deserve 1 star rating. In under 3 years my pension has lost its value by 2/3rds. Avoid this company like like the plague
If you want your lose your hard earned pension fund like myself which I have found has diminished by more than 80% over the last 5 years then allow Momentum to become trustees of your pension fund. Myself and more than 200 others have suffered massive losses to our pension investments. Myself and many others have outstanding complaints against Momentum Pensions going on through the Maltese Financial Ombudsman office at this present time. Beware please, Momentum should not be allowed to be Trustees because their actions to date have not looked after our best interests.
A great service, highly professional and very efficient. I have always found the staff to be very knowledgable in their field and incredibly helpful. I would highly recommend momentum as a pension investment company, you will be looked after!
Momentum trustee Malta Do not trust them with your money. They allowed unlicensed and unregulated advisors to purchase professional high risk structured notes, suitable only for professional investors. This was against the investors written instructions. We have lost 100k from our pension fund. There attention to due diligence was none existent. They accept no responsibility for there actions.
Very happy customer of Momentum, have always had excellent service. Friendly and helpful team of financial advisors offering a variety of good investment schemes.
My experience with Momentum Pensions Malta has been really great . The staff go out of their way to give me the very best service. They have put me first in their plans for my future .
Under their governance, my pension lost over 60% of its value. They aligned themselves with an advisory firm who, after decimating hundreds of pensions, through high risk investments that paid them huge commissions, using forged dealing instructions,folded their business and fled. This is a company who operate with HMRC approval.
When a person chooses to move a pension they do so via an intermediary such as myself. Having first become involved in the UK industry some 32 years ago, i have experienced many ill feelings towards trustees when investments go wrong when in fact it was the poor advice or unprofessional behaviour of a few financial advisers (or the companies they work for) along with investment decisions made jointly with the client, which has been the issue for these losses. Momentum are an outstanding company and one of a number that i personally recommend. They are not allowed to give investment or financial advice, that is our responsibility, and if they hear of, or find out that a company is giving poor or incorrect advice or working outside of the regulated environment, they would remove their terms of business with them. Within the posts i have read on here, it is some of these companies who have created the issues and 1 star ratings as they acted inappropriately, lost their terms of business and unfortunately some clients have suffered financially due to their actions not those of Momentum. I cannot comment on behalf of Momentum or individual claims made against them as trustees but in my opinion these post are in the most unfair. I do however feel for these clients and they should pursue the companies that gave them the advice not rubbish such a respectable company as Momentum. I want people to understand the importance of what they are signing with their advisers, why they are doing it and NEVER leave blank sections on documents that they sign.
I am one of over 200 victims of the scam that this organisation should have recognized and protected me against but did nothing to prevent. They accepted forged documentation, and allowed inappropriate products to be purchased on my behalf without my knowledge or consent. To be avoided.
Would definately recommend Momentum...TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. I have lost over half of my investment due to it being put into high risk structured notes; my risk attitude which I asked to be set to LOW, was actually set at LOW/MEDIUM, and somewhere along the line, has been amended to HIGHER /MEDIUM without my knowledge. They have not to date, offered any recompense, or to replace the losses, and they work with unregulated companies such as CWM (who folded in September after scamming hundreds of people), and Trafalgar International, who are seemingly only licensed to give insurance advice, and not outside of Germany. These are the management companies Momentum are working with, and they have not provided due care to their clients investments, allowing 120 people that I know of at least to have lost thousands and thousands.....with no offers to even attempt to put it right.
I was approached by Continental wealth Mis-Management. They assured me my pension would be safe and invested by Momentum/Malta. I did my research and was very impressed with the feed back about Momentum. In fact it was the deciding factor why I invested my money that way. How wrong I was! Momentum allowed Continental Wealth Mis-Management to forge my signature multiple times and invest in highly speculative investment! If you have a pension in the UK and live abroad I would highly recommend you leave it where it is! Forget QROPS and similar "cons" it only makes money for the advisers.
This company is a disaster for anyone wishing to invest their pension. They continue to cause distress for hundreds of investors without any conscience, who have suffered at their mis-management. Do not invest in this company!
The company has great values as organization. The CEO is very professional and ethical with all stakeholders, from employees to clients and service providers. Unfortunately some dishonest financial advisers ruined the reputation of the Trust, which however was never found to be directly involved with frauds or scams, I know they even rebated administration fees to all people who suffered heavy losses.
The vast majority of reviews for Momentum, here, relate not to Momentum themselves, of whom I feel provide an exemplary service to their clients, but to the poor quality, commission laden 'advice' provided by unscrupulous financial 'advisers'. Do your research and choose to work with a properly regulated, fee based (no commissions) Chartered Financial Planner and you shouldn't experience any of the painful issues that the majority of these reviewers detail.
My husband has lost about 190k of a 250k private pension by Momentum's complete lack of responsibility as trustees. The investment is now stagnating at 60k and is subject to a hefty exit penalty should we wish to end this 'scam'.
If we only knew 2 years ago what we know now we would never of trusted them with our hard earth money .. heaven knows what we are to do now .. We trusted them because a friend of ours worked for Continental Wealth Management. Needless to More
My Husbands hard earned pension investment has been destroyed as have many others by this company due to their lack of care by linking with companies who were unauthorised to give pension advice with high risk toxic investments when most clients wanted low to medium. Aswell as the financial loss, it has caused lots of serious stress affecting what should be our twilight years of calm. There commitment to resolving this situation seems to be zero as too busy treating us with contempt whilst trying to save their own skins. DO NOT INVEST / TRUST !!!! I have only given 1 star as this posting would not accept NONE !!
Supposed to be the trustees of my pension, no demonstration of any due Diligence . My hard earned cash invested in toxic investor only products. Avoid.
Momentum Pensions has an excellent customer service. I particularly like their attention to detail and follow up for clients, so often missing in many such pension providers. They are accessible, knowledgeable and present excellent value for money.
I only clicked on the one star but in reality I am not giving any stars whatsoever to this , they have misguided me and now I have little or no pension left due to their inappropriate misdealings without my agreement. So what little 'pension' I have left I would lose from paying exiting fees.
My partner and I both invested our pensions here via one of their so called 'advisors' in 2014, within the first 6 months we had lost half our investment, we now learn they were invested in High Risk structured notes.......unknown by us! We had No feedback from the company or our 'advisor' letting us know what a catastrophy was occuring with our hard earned dosh......and another thing, we were told at the start that the management fees would be 500 /year.......they have been taking out thousands in 'fees' without our concent.......Steer clear of this bunch at All costs.
This is a genuine review from a member of the Momentum Malta Retirement Trust, ( my QROPS ), which is administered by Momentum Pensions Malta Limited ( MPML ).
I retired and, with my wife, moved from the UK to Spain several years ago.
To keep this review as brief as possible:
BEFORE
I set-up my QROPS through Continental Wealth Management ( CWM ), as Agents for Trafalgar International ( TI ).
I had thought that both CWM and TI were reputable, properly licensed and regulated companies.
Like many others, I and my wife have suffered financial losses as a result of being former clients of CWM and TI.
It is very important, however, to note that this review is about Momentum Pensions Malta Ltd ( MPML ) who administer my QROPS, and not about CWM / TI.
AFTER
As soon as the application to open my QROPS in July 2016 was accepted, I received my Certificate of Membership and a copy of the published Momentum Malta Retirement Trust Scheme Particulars from MPML.
MPML then began to receive the transfer value monies from my UK pension arrangements in a very efficient and quick process.
Throughout, MPML sent me Client Account Statements identifying each transfer value received, and the payment of the agreed QROPS fees, CWM s initial fees and third party fees from these monies.
The Statements then showed the immediate transfer of the balance to Old Mutual International ( OMI ), as premium payments into the OMI Bond ( set-up by CWM ) held by my QROPS, which was to be the investment vehicle for the UK pension transfer value monies.
Bond documents were issued by OMI to my QROPS trustees, and copies were immediately sent to me by MPML.
The investments made with the money then held in the OMI Bond by my QROPS were either those sold to me by CWM, or those I had selected myself.
I found all communication with, and actions taken by, MPML to be very professional, accurate, courteous and punctual.
Both the initial and annual fees that are charged for the Momentum QROPS seem to me to be reasonable, competitive and good value for money.
MPML gave me access to OMI Wealth Interactive so that I could monitor the investments made through the OMI Bond for my QROPS, their cost and their subsequent investment performance.
It was while monitoring the investments held in my QROPS, I began to have a number of concerns regarding the investments sold to me by CWM / TI.
In the summer of 2017, I raised these concerns with CWM, and subsequently made a formal complaint to both ( the Agents ) CWM and ( their Principals ) TI. In summary, no proper response was received from either company.
I then contacted MPML to express my concerns about CWM / TI.
Very quickly after I contacted MPML, I received an email followed by a friendly phone call from Stewart Davies ( Momentum s Group Chief Executive Officer ) who asked me to give him a little more of the background and detail behind my concerns about CWM / TI. After listening, Stewart Davies agreed that I was right to have these concerns and told me he would immediately investigate the situation and get back to me.
Stewart Davies called me again the same morning to confirm that MPML would immediately arrange to remove CWM / TI as financial advisers to my QROPS, and the trustees ( as the legal owners ) would arrange to have CWM / TI removed as financial advisers to the OMI Bond.
Within 30 minutes of the above conversation, I had received an email from Stewart Davies confirming that the above agreed actions had been taken.
Following these conversations, the already good service I had received from MPML became an excellent service with all queries, instructions to, and communication with MPML ( and OMI ) being dealt with courteously, promptly, efficiently and professionally.
I would have no hesitation in recommending Momentum Pensions Malta Limited for their professional administration of my Momentum QROPS and pension arrangements, and the value and quality of their service.
No stars would be better. Momentum gave terms of business to unlicenced and unqualified "advisers" and took payments for acting as trustees. Then they sat back and watched as pensions were depleted and incomes invested in high risk funds against the wishes of the pension fund owners.Now, with many pension funds diminished to a small fraction of their original worth Momentum claim that none of it is their fault! They are happy to sit back and see people who have worked and saved hard all of their lives facing a future of poverty and despair because Momentum failed to do its job!
How do they get anything above a 1 star average rating? Is it by getting the company employees, their relatives and friends and business pals to give them 5 stars? Maybe their drinking buddies from sports events?
Not to be trusted, responsible for loss of of hundreds of QROPS pension funds. Please DO NOT let this company 'charm' you into handing over your money. Just think of 'kaa' the 'snake' in jungle book and you'll get the picture of what I mean.
This company act as trustees for myself and my wife's pension. Since transferring to them, the fund value between us has reduced by about 60%. Mostly this seems to be due to them allowing funds to be invested in structured notes which I have since found out are more for professional investors, not individuals. My wife has also had her risk profile altered without consent. Trustees should act with due diligence in ensuring these funds are properly invested in line with risk profiles which has not happened. At no point in the 3 years of investments and losses have the trustees corresponded other than to provide an annual summary of the debacle that our pensions now are.
I have had an excellent advisor for over 6 years and I just want to say thank you. I know you do not give investment advice but thank for adopting MiFID II and the protection it gives your members.
I entrusted my Pension Fund to Momentum Pensions Malta in early April 2015. It was invested in High Risk Structured Notes ignoring my chosen risk profile agreed on my Fact Find. I received no paperwork regarding my funds whereabouts until More
I entrusted my pension to Momentum in 2015, having been told that my money would not be put into high risk ventures but into a stable market which would see a gradual increase over the years to make my retirement comfortable. This has proven to be totally false. In the 3 years since I have been with Momentum my pension has been reduced by 60%. On looking into their practices, I have discovered my money has gone into high risk structured notes and that Momentum have failed totally to oversee the due diligence in accepting business from unlicenced companies. It is very stressful arriving at pensionable age, thinking your funds were in safe and trustworthy hands, to find that you have been taken for a fool. I have been trying to get satisfaction from Momentum, but they appear to have wiped their hands of this affair and apart from taking their charges, have done nothing to help the hundreds of folk in the same unfortunate position. Avoid at all cost.
I have found both the company and staff to be very professional and helpful in all ways. They are not allowed to give pension investment advice, only a registered advisor can do that.Their function is to act as an offshore pension bank and take instructions from their customers on investments.
You have done nothing to prevent my pension funds (and those of numerous others) being invested in high risk structured schemes which are not meant for individuals, resulting in personal losses in excess of 46,000 Euros!! I cannot rate lower than one star, but begrudge giving you even this
I recently moved a UK pension scheme to Momentum QROPS, after studying the Big 4 pension providers in Malta. I now live overseas (expat here!) and Momentum Pensions in Malta turned out to be an exceptional choice. Reasonable fees, very thorough due diligence and excellent customer service. This was a big step, but Momentum handled all aspects exceptionally well. The only drawback was the slow time of the Embark pension scheme administrators in transferring my money. Throughout the entire process I was kept well informed by the admin team and can now boast a growth in my fund worth! Well done!
this company who are "trustees" are not to be trusted lost nearly half of the investment in 4 years, communication great when things ok and when not ok communication terrible. avoid at all costs.
One star is way to high for this company. Over the time they have managed my money they have loss about 70% of my funds. I would advise not to go near them.
Momentum are not investment advisors, choose your advisors carefully. Momentum will make sure you are protected through regulation to the highest standard and inform you through the the whole process.
My wife and I max'ed out our contributions into pensions before coming to Spain, i.e. went without and spent less time with the family. I made the fateful mistake of following Premier Pensions/Continental Wealth advice on investments and going with Momentum as the Trustee and OMI the bond provider. Bizaarly it was initiated by being cold-called by CWM, following handing over an email address and phone number ('donating') at a Grant A Wish charity event. It was an interesting cover. It's been a life changing experience. 65% losses. My risk profile was medium. 100% of the money I handed over went into 'income notes' that I now understand to be high risk products for professional investors. That 'advice' I now have come to understand was from unregulated advisors. I've paid Premier, CWM, Momentum and OMI for the experience of course, in fees, and with such high fees they now far exceed any growth in what remains. In fact, I may as well give what's left to them now and get it over and done with. I'm just not clear where the 'trust' in Trustee comes from. I could say that it's taken years out of my life, e.g. from my wife, as I now have to spend more years at work. I wake up every day with that mistake of transferring our money into a QROPs.
My wife and I transferred our QROPS pensions from another Malta based scheme to the Momentum Malta Retirement Trust, and we're so glad we did. The initial reason for transferring over was the shoddy customer service of the other pension provider. It was giving us sleepless nights and anxiety. So far, Momentum staff have bowled us over with their friendliness and exceptional diligence to detail on every aspect of our pensions. Both transfers took approx 2-3 months to move, with the only delays due to the other company (using any delay tactic they could). Now, our queries are answered within 48 hours and the staff don't talk to us in corporate speak. We know Momentum was the right choice.
Momentum are the Trustees of my pension fund. As Trustees they are required to act in my best interests as a pension scheme member. In allowing my Advisers to alter my risk profile and invest my fund in totally unsuitable but, for the Advisers, financially lucrative structured notes, they failed in their duty to me. I have made a formal complaint about this and, after a delay, I expect to have an outcome next week. I remain hopeful that they will accept liability and refund my losses and associated fees.
Momentum took business from unqualified "financial advisers" and fees from the pension funds of people who were hoping to retire without having to worry about being penniless in their latter years. Momentum were supposed to act as "Trustees" for the those with the pension pots. Many of us now see only a bleak future because Momentum has failed us. Failed BIG TIME. Clearly they took our money as fees and did nothing. They allowed life insurance companies to charge huge fees for unnecessary policies which were used to cover the fact that the investing companies that they were associated with did not have the required qualifications and licences to act as financial investment advisers. Those that had any accreditation at all did so for the sale of insurance only. Investments in high risk products were allowed without question when the clients had requested that their funds be placed into low or low to medium risk products. When these "structured notes" failed, the financial losses were huge.
Of course our dire financial situations were not caused by any failure on their part said Momentum! OH NO! If this were the case then why have the financial laws of Malta recently been changed to prevent companies working in the way that Momentum has done? When the truth about the scale of losses suffered from the pension pots became known, Momentum blamed everyone but themselves but clearly the authorities want no more operations of that type.
There is much much more to this story but suffice it to say - Do not entrust your pensions, savings or any other investment to Momentum.
This company have successfully reduced both mine and my husbands pension to very little having accepted forged /photocopied instructions from Continental Wealth Management who operated from Spain illegally. Our money was invested in an Insurance Bond which isn't even legal in Spain!! Trustees they absolutely not! The dealing instruction example shown is absolutely nothing like my husbands signature and yet was signed off by Momentum signatories. This whole situation is most upsetting. All we can do is pray that all the companies involved will see sense and help us to get our pension funds back to where they should be :(
Momentum pension trustees have always acted in the best interest of my clients over the years . I regard them the best in the Industry when it comes to their administration and professionalism amongst both the SIPP and Qrops market . Phill Pennick
momentumpensions.com
