The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into possible illegal payoffs in the pension business.

The regulator has found indications that money-management firms paid retirement-plan consultants in order to be recommended to the consultants’ clients, according to the The Wall Street Journal.

If the commission takes action, it would be yet another black mark on the financial services industry, which has been accused of improper trading of mutual funds, conflicts of interest among securities analysts, questionable allocations of initial public offerings, and, more recently, bid-rigging and price-fixing in the insurance industry.

The Journal noted that the SEC’s scrutiny of the way pension management business is awarded stems from a broader probe of potential financial-services industry conflicts, which was launched in December.

Since then, regulators have become “troubled” by what they have uncovered, according to the paper. Some consultants and money managers may be referred to SEC enforcement officials for regulatory action that could result in fines and other punishment, the report noted.

Fund managers pay retirement-consulting firms for organizing conferences and other services, the Journal pointed out. It isn’t illegal for consultants to take money from asset managers for such services as long as they’re disclosed to the SEC and to pension clients, according to the newspaper.

But critics claim the fees are sometimes bigger than what the consultants disclose to their pension clients, according to the report, which suggested that they could be construed as little more than kickbacks.

Among the pension advisers the commission is looking into is a unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos., already at the center of a scandal besetting the insurance industry. Mercer Investment Consulting Inc., Marsh & Mac’s retirement-fund-consulting unit, has confirmed it is one of several consultants that have received an SEC request for data late last year, the Journal reported.

Mercer stated that it doesn’t “request, require, or accept payment from investment managers in order for them to be included or recommended in a manager or mutual-fund search,” according to the newspaper. The company reportedly added that it is cooperating with the SEC inquiry.