July 2018

25Jul

Tenders on the menu for UK pension schemes

The UK competition regulator is proposing regulatory changes designed to ensure pension schemes pressure the market into providing the best value for members. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is concerned competition problems exist within the UK's investment consultancy and fiduciary management markets. The regulator pointed out that about half of the UK's pension schemes use the same provider for both fiduciary management and investment consultancy. According to the regulator, trustees are vulnerable to pressure from their investment consultant which may...

July 25, 2018
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June 2018

30Jun

Later Pension, Poorer Health? Evidence from the New State Pension Age in the UK

By Ludovico Carrino (King's College London; Ca Foscari University of Venice - Dipartimento di Economia), Karen Glaser (University of London - Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine (SSHM)) & Mauricio Avendano (King's College London) This paper examines the health impact of UK pension reforms that increased women’s State Pension age for up to six years since 2010. Exploiting an 11% increase in employment caused by the reforms, we show that rising the State Pension age reduces physical and mental...

June 30, 2018
Aging, Articles, Pension design, , , ,
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May 2018

18May

Save for our pensions? We millennials can barely find the money to live

I’m yet to see a zombie movie that portrays the most likely way that a post-apocalyptic world will play out: hungry pensioners roaming around; not yet dead, but no pension to keep them fed, looking for an arm to gnaw on. If you think I’m being disrespectful to elderly people, I’m not: that’s my future I’m talking about. Wednesday’s Royal London report, suggesting millennials need to save £260,000 for a pension, is exactly the sort of thing that could...

May 18, 2018
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16May

UK. Key findings from the MPs’ report into Carillion’s collapse

A report into the collapse of Carillion by two parliamentary select committees has spread the blame liberally among the directors of the company, its auditors, the regulators and the government. Here are the key findings from the report: Directors The committees found that the directors sought to increase dividends and protect executive bonuses as the company began to unravel, while funding the pension scheme was “treated with contempt”. Their report urged the government’s Insolvency Service, which is still trying to salvage jobs from the wreckage of Carillion, to consider whether directors...

May 16, 2018
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March 2018

05Mar

Disclosure of costs, charges and investments in DC occupational pensions

UK Department for Work and Pensions This paper forms the Government’s response to a consultation on the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Administration and Disclosure) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which ran from the 26 October 2017 to 7 December 2017. The draft Regulations were designed to: introduce requirements for certain occupational schemes offering money purchase benefits to publish charge and transaction cost information, disclose this to members and others, and tell members where to find it; and introduce requirements for the same...

March 5, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, Savings, , ,
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05Mar

Growing Pension Deficits and the Expenditure Decisions of UK Companies

By Philip Bunn (Bank of England), Paul Mizen (University of Nottingham; Bank of England; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) & Pawel Smietanka (Bank of England) Large deficits have opened up on defined benefit pension schemes in the United Kingdom since 2007, and at the same time investment expenditure has been subdued; this is a common phenomenon in other countries too. We use privileged access to a unique new data set from The Pensions Regulator and two identification schemes to...

March 5, 2018
Articles, Investing, Regulation, , ,
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February 2018

28Feb

UK. Generational battle lines harden over pensions

If the personal finances of every household could be ranked, the period following the 2008 financial crisis puts the baby boomer on top. There is a counterpoint to this, say campaigners for older savers, which is the level of interest rates over the period. Surely a decade of ultra-low rates favours borrowers and most of them are young. Likewise, final salary pension schemes, dominated as they are by the older generation, have struggled to bring down their deficits as low...

February 28, 2018
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20Feb

UK. Britain’s pensions regulator ignored trustee requests on Carillion: lawmakers

Britain’s pensions regulator twice ignored requests from trustees of collapsed outsourcing firm Carillion (CLLN.L) to force the company to plug its pension deficit, lawmakers said on Tuesday. The Pensions Regulator has come under fire for taking insufficient steps to protect pension scheme members of troubled companies, following the collapse of department store chain BHS in 2016. Carillion collapsed on Jan. 15, with only 29 million pounds ($41 million) of cash left. It had pension liabilities of around 2.5 billion pounds, two...

February 20, 2018
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20Feb

UK. What Were the Outcomes of the Work and Pensions Committee Report?

“The outcome of the report comes as no real surprise. It concluded that the process for members to decide whether to move to the new British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS2) was hurried and the communication far too complex with not enough bespoke information. These factors contributed to many members transferring out of the scheme to a defined contribution arrangement, which was not in their best interest. “Nearly all members would be better off moving to the BSPS2, but as formal...

February 20, 2018
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13Feb

UK. Starling’s marketplace banking rollout adds pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgages

Starling, the U.K. challenger bank that offers a mobile-only current account, continues to execute on its marketplace banking strategy. Following the required regulatory approval, the Starling Marketplace is adding a number of financial services integrations, spanning pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgage brokerage. Specifically, Starling is partnering with PensionBee, Wealthsimple, Kasko, and Habito, respectively. It says it’s targeting 25 partnerships in total in 2018. The challenger bank has already added Flux to its in-app marketplace to offer item-level receipts and...

February 13, 2018
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