Monthly Archives: April 2014

Should fund managers be paid less for poor performance?

Sarah Smart of the Pensions Trust is on a crusade to make the fund management industry more accountable. She suggests in this month’s IPE that the bonus structures for those managing your money should be aligned with the time schemes you … Continue reading

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Boris on pensions!

All week I have been reading tweets from John Ralfe on the Osborne Pension Reforms. John’s argument is that the reforms have been imposed upon us without consultation and that they are likely to do permanent damage to the pension … Continue reading

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Princess Margaret does it for me

Thursday night’s when the Pension Personality awards get judged. That no-one can remember who the current Pension Personality is , suggests that this is about as useful a gong as Gillingham and Shaftesbury Carnival Queen which I once entered in … Continue reading

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“Whether we’re up or down”- what the terraces teach us about finance

  The reference is to a line in “Yeovil True” which celebrates our fan’s relationship to the club. On Friday the club’s men’s team did go down to League Division One, this time last year we went up to the Championship- … Continue reading

Posted in advice gap, annuity, later life, pension playpen, pensions, Yeovil Town | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If we knew when we died – we’d live a bit better.

The idea of a fixed term parliament is a good one, none of this uncertainty about when to call an election, everyone works with purpose to certain ends. Life should be like , or death. Actuaries can tell you when … Continue reading

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Measuring the success of the Guidance Guarantee

The most interesting discussions at yesterday’s pow-wow at the FCA centred on “Measures of Success”.  Bearing in mind the point of the Guidance Guarantee is help people make an informed choice, I’d have thought the answer was simple The measure of success … Continue reading

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Leadership needed to deliver the Budget’s pension promises

I’m off this morning to meet the FCA, hear about the detail on the Budget’s proposals on the New Annuity Guidance Framework and have a chance to deliver my tuppence worth on what should happen. This week my mind has … Continue reading

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Pound cost ravaging

I felt like General Melchett inspecting the trenches. At the 21st Century Retirement Income Update I met a bunch of advisers who have since 2008 been trying to help clients make sense of the volatility in world markets , understand the relationship … Continue reading

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21st Century Retirement Income Update

  Well here I am in a Village hotel under the M1 seven miles south of Leeds to chair a day long conference on the opportunities for financial advisers from George Osborne’s Budget Changes (the photo is the lovely view … Continue reading

Posted in corporate governance, First Actuarial, NEST, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Nest’s auto-enrolment -innit!” – “no it ain’t!”

  Auto-enrolment and NEST are synonymous to many. Hugh Pym, the BBC’s chief economic correspondent  told me he thought you could only auto-enrol into NEST and the mistake was repeated by Rachel Burden this morning on auto-enrolment. Rachel told the listeners … Continue reading

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