Monthly Archives: July 2015
How safe is your workplace pension?
The opportunity to improve pension fund charging. Let us pause for a moment and consider what we are buying into when we set up a workplace pension for our staff. On the face of it, nobody enrolled into a workplace … Continue reading
NEST – an explanation please!
Yesterday I jokingly referred to the Pension Regulator as the Pension Troublemaker. Its announcement yesterday of a “Directory” of two spells trouble for master trusts who are not on their way to getting the Master Trust Assurance Framework (RRP £15-100K … Continue reading
The pension troublemaker!
I love the Pension Regulator- they are definitely our most proactive financial services governor. They are fighting the fight on a number of fronts- but chiefly to make auto-enrolment a success. So when they make an announcement -it’s worth listening … Continue reading
Why I’m backing the master trust assurance framework
Back in May 2014, the Pension Regulator launched on an unsuspecting world the ICAEW’s Technical Release “Assurance reporting on master trusts”. At the time I was dismissive of this document and the Master Trust Assurance Framework (MAF). Write in haste , … Continue reading
NEST report and accounts; £400m and counting
The publication of NEST’s 2015 report and accounts yesterday has some good news and some not such good news. The good news is that nothing seriously went wrong last year, there are now some 14,000 employers using NEST for all … Continue reading
Lassitude or laxitude – 100 days of pension freedoms
“Lassitude” or “Laxitude” – what’s your judgement on how we’re carrying on? Or is this all just fine? Lassitude is a “proper” word that describes a lazy behaviour resulting from world weariness, laxitude is a made up word that describes … Continue reading
NOW- that’s what I call good news!
With over 1.2 million small and micro firms yet to tackle auto enrolment, new research from workplace pensions provider NOW: Pensions reveals that the number of employers planning on contributing more than the legislative minimum has nearly doubled in the … Continue reading
Pensioner First
A consistent theme of the pension reforms we have witnessed over the past five years has been a focus on the consumer of pension savings – the pensioner. Set in the wider context of welfare policy, the proposals to re-align … Continue reading