October 2026
07Oct

The DC Future Book 2026

By Pensions Policy Institute This report is the twelfth edition of the Pensions Policy Institute’s (PPI) The DC Future Book, setting out available data and analysis on the Defined Contribution (DC) landscape. Demographic and policy changes indicate that, compared to previous generations of pensioners, current and future retirees can expect to: Live longer on average, Receive their State Pension later, Be more likely to reach retirement with DC savings forming an important part of their pension provision, and with less DB...

October 7, 2026
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02Oct

UK. Employee pension contributions jump to £3.2bn

Employee contributions into private sector defined contribution occupational pension schemes reached £3.2bn in the first quarter of 2026, according to ONS data. This figure represents an increase of around £600m from £2.6bn in Q1 of 2025. Employer contributions also increased significantly, rising from £6.2bn in Q1 2025 to £6.8bn in Q1 2026. Active membership of private sector DC schemes edged up by 30,000 over the same period to 11.5 million. Deferred membership of private sector DC schemes increased from 22.1 million...

October 2, 2026
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September 2026
30Sep

French presidential candidate Philippe pitches later retirement, mandatory savings

French centre-right presidential candidate Edouard Philippe proposed on Tuesday raising the retirement age to 65 and making private pension savings compulsory, tackling one of France’s most ​politically explosive issues. Pension reform is highly sensitive in France, where ‌workers rely on a public, pay-as-you-go system funded by current contributions, and private retirement savings remain voluntary and limited. With one of the lowest retirement ages in advanced countries at 62.9 years, France’s pension system is sliding into deficit as ‌the ​population ages, making...

September 30, 2026
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17Sep

Value for Money: Industry flags concerns over forward-looking metrics

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) consultation process closed this week, as it continues to develop the proposed Value for Money (VfM) rulebook that the government hopes will strengthen and future-proof DC savings. Pension providers and trade bodies have widely welcomed the proposed system, but several have flagged concerns over issues such as forward-looking performance metrics and the absence of collective defined contribution arrangements from the rulebook. In its response, TPT Retirement Solutions argued that regulators needed to ensure that “forward-looking projections...

September 17, 2026
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11Sep

WTW 2026 Defined Contribution Survey: Employers face a retirement readiness gap, and pressure is mounting to prove plans work

By WTW  U.S. employers are facing a clear retirement readiness challenge: they value defined contribution (DC) plans, but many still lack a precise view of whether those plans are helping employees retire on time and with confidence. That is according to the WTW 2026 Defined Contribution Survey from WTW (NASDAQ: WTW), a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company. In the survey of 547 U.S. plan sponsors, 60% have a working definition of retirement readiness, split among income replacement (40%),...

September 11, 2026
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04Sep

Subjective Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning

By Weiqiang Tan & Jingbo Wu This research uses data from the National Financial Capability Study to investigate how subjective financial literacy (FL) influences retirement planning behaviors. Through a probit model, we establish that subjective FL have significant positive effects on three common retirement planning behaviors. When analyzing how subjective FL affects retirement planning, we find that retirement savings estimation partially mediates the relationship between subjective FL and the opening of retirement accounts. In addition, we find that the effect...

September 4, 2026
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04Sep

US. DC plan sponsors struggle to define retirement readiness: WTW

A recent survey of more than 550 US employers by WTW has exposed an uncomfortable truth at the centre of defined contribution plan governance: a large majority of plan sponsors have no formal definition of what retirement readiness means for their workforce. “You can't prove that your plan works if you haven't defined what working actually means,” said Chris West, senior managing director and DC strategy leader at WTW. “Employers are facing a retirement readiness gap and that pressure is...

September 4, 2026
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August 2026
28Aug

Risk Sharing and Asset Pricing under Alternative Retirement Systems

By Li Wei We examine what happens to financial markets and how generations share risk when defined benefit (DB) pension plans are incorporated into an asset pricing model with imperfect markets. We look at how important it is for pension fund growth, changes in asset demand, and return-driven volatility channels to use an adjusted macroeconomic asset price model and past data on financial markets and the pension sector. We use scenario models to look at what would happen to the...

August 28, 2026
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July 2026
29Jul

UK. DC market entering new era as focus shifts from participation to outcomes

The UK defined contribution (DC) market is entering a new phase as attention shifts from participation towards pension adequacy and member outcomes, according to Hymans Robertson. In its latest paper, UK DC pensions in 2026: from participation to outcomes, the consultancy said that automatic enrolment (AE) had successfully brought millions more people into workplace pension saving, but warned that participation alone would not deliver adequate retirement incomes. The report noted that around half of workers were contributing only at the AE minimum,...

July 29, 2026
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March 2026
31Mar

UK. PMI: Why a new pension system needs a new regulatory approach

The latest of the Pensions Management Institute’s (PMI’s) regular columns says the question is no longer how we regulate schemes, but how we regulate a system. For years, policymakers and the industry have anticipated defined contribution (DC) consolidation. That future has now arrived. Master trusts now dominate both DC membership and assets, smaller schemes continue to exit the market, and the landscape is increasingly shaped by a small number of large providers. Yet our regulatory framework still reflects an earlier,...

March 31, 2026
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