August 2019

30Aug

UK universities’ pension funding hole doubles to £6.6bn

Hundreds of thousands of members of the £72bn Universities Superannuation Scheme face the threat of a further rise in their pension contributions after the plan’s managers revealed a funding hole had nearly doubled to £6.6bn. Read also UK universities brace for strike action in pensions dispute About 198,000 active members of the USS, the UK’s largest private sector pension plan, are making monthly payments of 8.8 per cent of their salary towards their pensions, which promise an inflation-proofed retirement income...

August 30, 2019
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29Aug

UK. Defined benefit transfer values hit record high

Defined benefit transfer values reached record highs in August, according to data from XPS Pensions. In an update issued today (August 28), the consultancy firm said its transfer value index reached an all-time high of £258,200 on August 21, which compares to £247,400 at the end of July. The increase was largely driven by a significant fall in gilt yields during August, partially offset by a small fall in inflation expectations, XPS stated. At the same time, the consultancy firm saw an increase in the...

August 29, 2019
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28Aug

UK. New report lays down challenges for policymakers on increasingly ageing population

The UK must prepare for the “daunting but not insurmountable” challenge of ageing. · - Global academic thought leaders urge UK policymakers to act on the “daunting but not insurmountable” challenge of ageing · - New report from Scott and Bloom for ILC argues that UK policymakers must go further to help the UK prepare for ageing · ...

August 28, 2019
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28Aug

Third of UK’s top companies to cut executive pensions – investor body

Nearly a third of the companies in Britain’s FTSE 100 index of blue chip firms have agreed to cut pension payments for executives, the Investment Association said on Wednesday, amid increasing scrutiny of the gap between bosses’ and ordinary workers’ pensions in Britain. In February, the Investment Association, which represents big asset managers, said a company would be “red-topped” if it did not explicitly state that any new executive director would have pension contributions set in line with the...

August 28, 2019
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27Aug

UK. Public sector to launch ‘mass legal battle’ over pension reforms

Mass legal claims on behalf of teachers and doctors alleging that changes to their pensions in 2015 were discriminatory are being launched against the government. After successfully winning a similar pension case on behalf of judges, the London law firm Leigh Day is preparing employment tribunal cases for public sector workers. The British Medical Association is also coordinating action with doctors over pension reforms that they claim could inflict huge financial losses on individuals by the time they retire....

August 27, 2019
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26Aug

UK universities brace for strike action in pensions dispute

British universities are heading towards strike action later this year, after employers insisted on requiring staff to pay higher pension contributions despite union warnings that the move would trigger a ballot on industrial action. Read also UK universities’ pension funding hole doubles to £6.6bn The University and College Union (UCU) said it had rejected an offer by the employers, represented by Universities UK (UUK), to swap limited increases in staff pension contributions for a two-year bar on strike action. The...

August 26, 2019
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23Aug

Raising the retirement age to 75 won’t fix the UK’s pension problem

Like most developed countries across the world, the UK’s population is tipping rapidly into old age. By 2042, 24 per cent of people living in the UK will be aged 65 or older, up from 18 per cent in 2016. The all important ratio between working people and pensioners is shifting, and as a result, the weight of the financial burden is growing. Earlier this week, centre-right think tank The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), chaired by former secretary...

August 23, 2019
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22Aug

UK firm to unveil ‘abridged’ advice pension transfer tool

Digital financial advice firm Wealth Wizards is rolling out a tool to allow advisers to offer abridged advice around defined benefit (DB) pension transfers. Abridged advice, which was mentioned during a recent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consultation, is a concept that sees IFAs give a short form of advice that can only result in not to transfer DB pensions, based on a high-level assessment of a client’s circumstances. Wealth Wizards plans to offer the service to advisers as a...

August 22, 2019
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22Aug

UK.Comparing pensions is more complicated than it might seem

RUTH Wishart’s article (Principle on which we base the state pension is flawed, August 20) is itself seriously flawed. Ruth says “the whole principle on which we base the state pension is flawed at base camp by utilising a statutory cut-off point. Life expectancy varies by more than 10 years just between different districts in Scotland’s major cities”. Whilst true, this is but one of the of many factors that influence how many years (if any) an individual can...

August 22, 2019
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21Aug

UK. Pension age hike plan called ‘chilling and immoral’ by Baroness Ros Altmann

Tory Iain Duncan Smith's proposal to hike the pension age to 75 has been branded "chilling and immoral" - by a Tory former pensions minister. Ros Altmann said retraining people older than 50 to find jobs should be a greater priority than the plan, dreamed up by Mr Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank. The CSJ said the state pension age should rise to 70 by 2028, and then to 75 by 2035. Read also...

August 21, 2019
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