August 2018

UK. Pensions dashboard to be debated in Parliament

“The dashboard really needs to happen if the government wants people to save enough for a decent retirement income. We can’t stop pensions being confusing and a turn off but we can make it easier to get all the information in one place and that would surely help. "The practical difficulties are not to be underestimated and occupational schemes are struggling to improve their own data quality. However, if the risks are to be transferred to individuals then we have...

UK. Pension transfers could cost members £2,600 over expected lifetime

Pension members choosing to transfer out of their employer’s scheme could receive an income that is £2,600 lower over their expected lifetime, according to research by XPS Pensions Group. The report, Member Outcomes Under Freedom and Choice, published today (7 August 2018), looks at data on defined benefits (DB) scheme transfers, collated by XPS Administration over the period since 2016. The research also found: Depending on the choice of retirement vehicle chosen to receive a transfer, an individual could run out of...

UK pension industry faces transparency inquiry

As Australia’s superannuation industry undergoes its own grilling at the Royal Commission, the UK Government has announced the Commons Select Committee will hold an inquiry into pension costs and transparency. The inquiry would examine whether the pensions industry provides sufficient transparency around charges, investment strategy and performance to consumers. It comes off the back of the Committee’s recent inquiry into pension freedom and choice, which found that some scheme members were being “shamelessly bamboozled” into signing up to unsuitable ongoing adviser...

UK Financial services exports to the EU reach a record high

UK exports of financial services to the EU reached an all-time high of £25.9bn in 2017, according to data released today by the Office for National Statistics. A £3.5bn increase in the surplus on financial services was the largest driver of the UK’s services surplus last year. By destination, Europe was the largest contributor to the improvement in the financial services trade balance, with a £26.5bn surplus accounting for £2.9bn of the headline gain. The record high on financial services exports...

UK. Calls for HMRC to scrap rule penalising parents’ pensions

The taxman is under pressure to ditch a rule that costs busy new parents thousands of pounds in state pension entitlement. Parents who have taken time out of work to raise their baby get just three months during the frantic first weeks of having a newborn to register for child benefits with HMRC, allowing them to continue to build up their state pension though they are not employed. Those who failed to do this have already missed out on as much...

July 2018

UK. Rush to cash-in small pensions will leave thousands below ‘acceptable’ retirement income, warns Just Group

Cashing in small pension pots early to rely on State benefits in retirement could leave many thousands of people struggling to achieve an acceptable income in later life, suggests new analysis by Just Group. The warning comes following the publication of Minimum Income Standards (MIS) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) reflecting the public’s views on how much weekly income is needed to achieve a minimum acceptable standard of living in the UK today. The JRF’s 2018 report suggest the MIS...

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...

June 2018

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...

May 2018

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...

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...