Monthly Archives: April 2016

Putting the world to rights – in a snazzy waistcoat!

Posted on April 30, 2016 by henry tapper

    One of the reasons that pension schemes are so boring is that they never seem to do anything. They take your money and then they give you it back, in the intervening years you are none the wiser … Continue reading →

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Tata, BHS, Austin Reed- “the big mess”.

Posted on April 30, 2016 by henry tapper

  In an excellent article “Home of the Big Mess” Ivan Laws gives us his experience of watching on as a defined benefit scheme he administered was plundered by people who had the wit to use pension surpluses to provide … Continue reading →

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Secondary annuities – who benefits? RALPH FRANK

Posted on April 29, 2016 by henry tapper

Another great guest blog from Ralph- keep them coming Ralph – your reader stats are awesome!(Pension Plowman) The seemingly inexorable march towards the creation of a secondary annuity market passed two significant milestones last week.  HMRC published a consultation covering the … Continue reading →

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Research and Development in Financial Advice

Posted on April 29, 2016 by henry tapper

The Financial Conduct Authority has published the results of its survey of firms providing financial advice. The results make for depressing reading. Of the sample, 72% of firms said that customers’ preference for personal interaction with an adviser was a … Continue reading →

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Top 10 pension strap lines

Posted on April 28, 2016 by henry tapper

Sometimes you sit around in the evening and some good lines come out. Here are a few from an evening with my partner Stella -5 years ago!

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Philip Green – Maxwell II

Posted on April 28, 2016 by henry tapper

In a remarkable article in the FT, Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Holden, David Davis brands Phil Green’s behaviour at BHS as … the dark side of capitalism: increased borrowing and payment of ever bigger dividends; risk transferred from the private … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions, risk | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

What price advice?

Posted on April 27, 2016 by henry tapper

The principal purpose of the Financial Advice Market Review carried out by the FCA and sponsored by Harriet Baldwin (Chief Economic Secretary to the Treasury) is to broaden the availability of advice to ordinary people. Critical to the purchasing of … Continue reading →

Posted in Payroll, pensions | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Pensions Regulator gives IGCs a new row of teeth.

Posted on April 27, 2016 by henry tapper

  It’s not enough- not nearly enough – but at last the Pensions Regulator’s beginning to take workplace pensions seriously enough to offer something close to a decent choice for employers staging auto-enrolment. Yesterday , Andrew Warwick-Thompson, head of policy … Continue reading →

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Was Shakespeare a crack-head?

Posted on April 26, 2016 by henry tapper

  The Plowman’s been like a pig in shit these past few days. I can’t run on the Radio without hearing someone singing or declaiming Shakespeare. The TV’s packed with programmes on the Bard and on Sunday I did the … Continue reading →

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Insurers – VFM and the Competition Commission.

Posted on April 26, 2016 by henry tapper

  The FT Adviser magazine has published a short piece leaking a story that has been doing the rounds for a few weeks. It would appear that the insurers who have been subject to the scrutiny of an independent governance … Continue reading →

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