March 2023
15Mar

UK. Budget: Pensions to get boost as tax-free limit to rise

The total amount that workers can accumulate in their pension savings before paying extra tax is expected to be increased in Wednesday's Budget. The final figure has not been confirmed, but people are expected to be able to save up to £1.8m over a lifetime, up from £1.07m currently. The policy aims to stop people - particularly doctors - from reducing hours or retiring early owing to tax. Critics say the move will only benefit a small fraction of the workforce. UK economic...

March 15, 2023
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14Mar

UK. DB Pension Risk Transfers May Slow Due to Lack of Liquidity

High interest rates have made it a good time for some defined benefit plan sponsors to transfer pension risk, but a liquidity pinch may be delaying or altogether shutting off the window, according to experts who spoke at PLANADVISER’s virtual DB Summit last week. The interest rate hikes, which the Federal Reserve started about a year ago to try and tame inflation, have brought present liability down for many plans, said Gloria Griesinger, assistant treasurer for global pension investments and...

March 14, 2023
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10Mar

The gender gap in pension saving

By Jonathan Cribb, Heidi Karjalainen & Laurence O’Brien This report is an output from a programme of research on ‘Pension saving over the lifecycle’ (WEL /FR-000000374) that is funded by the Nuffield Foundation. Co-funding from the ESRCfunded Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (ES/T014334/1) is also gratefully acknowledged. We are grateful to Alex Beer, Carl Emmerson and Paul Johnson for useful comments, and to Rowena Crawford for discussion and advice on this work. This work was produced using data from...

March 10, 2023
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08Mar

UK. New figures show Gender Pension Gap remains stubbornly high

New statistics from trade union, Prospect, provide their latest estimate of the Gender Pensions Gap. They put the gap at 40.5% for 2020-21, essentially unchanged since the figure was first estimated half a decade ago. This is significantly more than the gender pay gap, and represents an average annual £7,100 shortfall. The latest figures show that despite an increased focus on the gap, current government policies are failing to provide any improvement. This has led Prospect to warn of a “ticking...

March 8, 2023
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07Mar

Undersaving in British pensions still substantial, says government report

New government figures show the level of undersaving in British pensions is still substantial, despite increased pension participation in the private sector. ‘Analysis of future pension incomes’, published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), updates figures from an auto-enrolment review in 2017 with a new estimate of the number and proportion of working-age individuals aged 22 to state pension age who are not saving enough for their retirement. The new report – covering England, Scotland and Wales – is...

March 7, 2023
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February 2023
28Feb

RSA Group completes one of largest pension risk transfer deals in U.K.

RSA Group insured £6.5 billion ($7.8 billion) in liabilities for two defined benefit funds through a buy-in with Pension Insurance Corp. in one of the largest risk transfer transactions ever in the U.K. market. RSA Group, which is a subsidiary of Intact Financial Corporation, covered liabilities for 40,000 plan participants of Sal Pension Scheme and the Royal Insurance Group Pension Scheme. Intact contributed £500 million to the deal, which was accelerated by an improvement in pension fund funding levels due to...

February 28, 2023
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23Feb

U.K. Pensions Regulator tells retirement plan trustees to disclose ESG data or face fines

The U.K. Pensions Regulator warned Wednesday that retirement fund trustees could be fined if they don't report on ESG and climate change investments. TPR said in a news release it will launch a campaign in the spring that will check if trustees are publishing ESG data in their statement of investment principles, which outline how retirement funds invest. Since 2019, retirement funds have been required to publish ESG policies on plan websites to show ESG investments to plan participants. They are...

February 23, 2023
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22Feb

UK. Pension schemes urged to utilise technology to improve saver experience

The Pensions Administration Standards Association (Pasa) has launched a whitepaper, Focusing on a Saver-Centric experience, encouraging pension schemes to leverage technology to ensure that recent admin enhancements aren’t "tactical and short term". The whitepaper found that an "overwhelming majority" of those interviewed viewed eAdmin as a ‘must have’ in today’s environment and have set aside the required budgets. It also found that developments are being prioritised by assessing the saver experience, operational efficiency, environmental impact and regulatory requirements, and are no...

February 22, 2023
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21Feb

UK urged to curb pension freedoms to boost workforce

Ministers seeking to boost the UK’s workforce should crack down on pension freedoms and tax breaks that encourage wealthy people to retire early, according to an influential think-tank.   In a report on Tuesday, the Resolution Foundation set out a series of measures aimed at tackling the post-coronavirus pandemic rise in economic inactivity. That is now a crucial focus for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, as he looks for ways to improve the UK’s growth prospects in his Budget on March 15.   Hunt has...

February 21, 2023
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20Feb

69% of Workers Plan to Hold Down a Job in Retirement. For Many of Them, That’s Not a Choice.

Many of us are used to grinding out way through a job for many years because, well, that's sort of what we have to do. But it's also easy to see why the idea of working in retirement is unappealing to a lot of people. After all, you've held down a job your entire life. You deserve to enjoy a stretch of time when work doesn't come into the picture. But unfortunately, a large number of workers today may end up...

February 20, 2023
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