Monthly Archives: April 2020
Will financial advice ever be the same?
The appetite of ordinary people – especially older people, to get the information they want is insatiable. This Sunday, my mother will chose which church service she “attends” from the live streaming of Wesley’s Chapel in London to the Zoomed … Continue reading
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The rocket-fuel for recovery is love
In the pursuit of happiness (a principal theme of this blog), I am sometimes having to focus on “distress”. Now is such a time. There is a fine line between alleviating distress and profiting from it. We all know … Continue reading
Posted in age wage, coronavirus, pensions
Tagged Cornoavirus, COVID19, ezra pound, love, pensions, recovery
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No more reports – nobody reads!
Baroness Bennett, Stedman-Scott and Altmann – getting things done Every year occupational pensions schemes are required to publish reports that nobody reads. Clearly this is unsatisfactory and we could go two ways Stop writing the reports (would anyone notice?) … Continue reading
Posted in advice gap, age wage, dc pensions, governance, Guidance, pensions
Tagged Chair statement, DWP, Pensions, Ros Altmann, SIP, Stedman-Scott, TPR
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The elephant in the care home
New paper looks at early evidence of care home mortality in different countries. Provisionally concludes that about half (42% to 57%) of COVID-19 deaths are taking place in care homes. As a reminder, the 11,329 deaths announced by DHSC are … Continue reading
Posted in actuaries, advice gap, Consolation, coronavirus, pensions
Tagged Care Homes, Coronavirus, COVID19, Covid19actiongroup, death rates, ONS
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A dashboard of everything?
Is the Pandemic- a regulatory challenge or opportunity? More than 30 consumer protection measures in the UK have been put on hold since COVID outbreak. Regulators need to guard against lobbying to make these interim measures permanent. https://t.co/5lbFgbVXYF — Josephine … Continue reading
Posted in advice gap, age wage, Dashboard, de-risking, pensions
Tagged Cornoavirus, COVID19, Dashboard, dashboard of everything, FCA, ft, jo cumbo, Technology, TPR
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Nicola Oliver on capacity within the NHS
We are reliant upon healthcare capacity to reduce the severity of this pandemic in terms of morbidity and mortality. One of the key challenges will be how a health system copes in times of increased demand. This is contingent … Continue reading
Posted in actuaries, advice gap, coronavirus, pensions
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Pension Plowman’s guide to 2020 IGC reports
This is a big year for IGCs. It is their fifth birthday, it’s the year when the FCA reviews their effectiveness and it’s the year of the pandemic, where providers and savers will be under maximum strain. Most of the … Continue reading
Posted in FCA, IGC, pensions
Tagged Aegon, Aviva, BlackRock, FCA, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, IGC, IGC report, L&G, Pensions, Phoenix, Prudential, Reassure, Royal London, Scottish Widows, SJP, Standard Life, Virgin Monday, workplace Pensions, Zurich
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From an empty chair; Hargreaves Lansdown’s excellent IGC statement.
A cautionary tale It has been a difficult year for Hargreaves Lansdown’s IGC and they have launched their Chair’s statement without a Chair. This unusual state of affair followed the departure of David Grimes with clearly no succession plan … Continue reading
Posted in IGC, pensions
Tagged Chair, David Grimes, Hargreaves Lansdown, IGC, pension, pensions
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B&CE’s EasyBuild SHP & IGC: – RIP
Once B&CE ran the most popular stakeholder pension in Britain- it was called EasyBuild and if you worked in the construction industry, you were probably in it. But Stakeholder Pensions didn’t really work, the guarantees on charges were expensive for … Continue reading
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Is Fidelity’s IGC papering over the cracks?
Kim Nash and Anna Bradley are the only female IGC Chairs. Kim’s not only IGC chair at Fidelity, she’s chair of the master trust. She’s not only chair of the Fidelity master trust , but chair of the Scottish Widows … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Conduct Authority, IGC, pensions
Tagged FCA, Fidelity, IGC, Kim Nash, Pensions, workplace Pensions
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