Greater Manchester Pension Fund has written to chancellor Gordon Brown, calling for tighter regulations following the collapse of the Farepak savings club. The fund has more than 220,000 members from local authorities in the Manchester area and assets of at least £9bn. Thousands of customers were badly hit when Farepak went bust in October. Administrator BDO Stoy Hayward said last week it had received claims from 113,000 customers and agents for a total of £38m. The fund also has a £118m stake in Farepak's bank, HBOS, and has been lobbying it, too. The fund's head of pensions investments, Steven Taylor, said it was ‘essential' that tighter regulations were introduced. He said: ‘There will be a considerable number of members of our fund who will have suffered significant financial loss through the collapse of Farepak. ‘There are many low-paid, part-time staff who are members of our fund, and it is just such members who are likely to have been hit by the collapse. The trustees of the fund, therefore, have great sympathy with the plight of these members.'
