October 2025
06Oct

UK. How pension reform is reshaping retirement income

The UK’s retirement market stands once again at the brink of profound change. The FCA’s December 2024 consultation paper – creatively titled CP24/27: Advice Guidance Boundary Review: Proposed Targeted Support Reforms for Pensions – paired with the upcoming Pensions Schemes Bill 2025, represents a regulatory double act poised to transform how retirement income solutions are delivered. This approach represents a critical evolution beyond existing Pension Freedoms (2015) legislation, where retirees frequently struggled with overwhelming choice, leading to premature withdrawals or complete indecision. Guided...

October 6, 2025
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03Oct

UK and European pension funds laying the groundwork for VC surge

UK and European pension funds are laying the groundwork to become a more significant source of venture capital (VC) funding, according to a report from Venture Connections, European Women in VC and Pensions for Purpose, with Nordic pension funds the most active, despite growing momentum in the UK. The report, Mapping Pension Funds Attitudes to Venture & Growth in Europe, suggested that pension funds have the chance to help savers benefit and support long-term economic renewal, estimating that while only...

October 3, 2025
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September 2025
30Sep

UK. Pension disaster as nearly half of pots overdrawn in ‘real risk’ to retirement savings

Fresh analysis of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) figures shows pension withdrawals at unsustainable rates have reached record levels. In 2024/25, 45 per cent of all retirement savings pots were accessed at eight per cent or higher. Financial experts generally regard four per cent as a prudent annual drawdown rate, meaning many retirees are drawing down at double the recommended pace. The findings come from consultancy firm Broadstone, which compiled eight years of FCA retirement income market data. The 45 per cent figure is...

September 30, 2025
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29Sep

UK. Gen Z need £3m plus for comfortable retirement

Young people typically now in their 20s, known as Generation Z, are likely to need at least £3 million to retire comfortably due to the erosive impact of inflation, according to new analysis by Rathbones Group, one of the UK’s leading wealth management firms. The calculations, based on the amount needed for a ‘comfortable’ retirement as defined by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), show that a 25-year-old today would need a pension pot of £3.1 million to retire at age...

September 29, 2025
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26Sep

Aligning your pension scheme with the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures recommendations

By Department for Work and Pensions This guide aims to help trustees evaluate the way in which climate-related risks and opportunities may affect their strategies. Trustees should consider how different investments and strategies could be impacted by transition and physical risks, at an asset class, sector and firm level where appropriate. Schemes should set out what risks and opportunities they consider to be relevant or material to them over the short/medium/long term time horizons for their scheme. They should use scenario analysis...

September 26, 2025
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26Sep

UK. Industry urges policy shift to revive DB and accelerate CDC

The Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) has called for a policy reboot to keep existing defined benefit (DB) schemes open and to fast-track collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes, as the relaunched Pensions Commission turns its attention to pensions adequacy. In a new paper, Past Lessons, Future Gains, SPP argued that the current adequacy crisis cannot be fixed by contribution reviews alone and urged the commission to examine the type of scheme people save into, warning that the long shift from...

September 26, 2025
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25Sep

UK. ESG as part of investment strategies

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations have become central to pension scheme investment strategies. As major institutional investors, pension schemes are at the forefront of an evolving regulatory and stakeholder landscape that demands both compliance and meaningful action. The ESG imperative for pension schemes ESG is no longer a ‘nice to have’ for schemes’ investment considerations. As the Pensions Regulator (TPR) has recently stated, awareness of and managing systemic risks is now a core part of effective trusteeship. It's a statutory...

September 25, 2025
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24Sep

UK. Invisible workers face pension crisis

New research from PensionBee, a leader in the consumer retirement market, reveals a deepening divide in the UK’s pension system, with millions of self-employed, gig economy and lower-income workers being denied the same chance of a secure retirement as those in traditional employment. Of the most striking results of the survey of 1,000 UK adults working in the gig economy, was that only 16% of those earning under £15,000 report paying regularly into a personal pension, whilst less than...

September 24, 2025
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23Sep

UK. PensionBee Urges Pensions Commission to Deliver Bold Reforms to Secure Better Retirements for Millions of UK Savers

Millions risk being condemned to retirement poverty unless the UK’s pensions system is overhauled, PensionBee has warned, as it calls on the Pensions Commission to deliver bold reforms to tackle deep-rooted structural inequalities. In a letter to the Commission, the leading online pension provider highlights how women, unpaid carers, the self-employed and lower-paid workers are being locked out of the progress achieved through Auto-Enrolment, while many others are being held back by a pensions market that is too complex and...

September 23, 2025
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19Sep

Retirement income market data 2024/25

By Financial Conduct Authority We have collected data on the retirement income market since April 2015. The data helps us monitor developments. For example, it gives us insight into the actions consumers take the first time they access a pension pot. Previously published data up to March 2018 is also included in separate tables. The data for these periods was initially drawn from a representative sample. We started collecting data from all regulated firms that provide retirement income products from 1 April...

September 19, 2025
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