Monthly Archives: October 2022
We’ve mislaid £26bn of pension savings – this is not an imaginary problem!
This blog focusses on a very real problem of perhaps 5% of everyone saving for their retirement. They can’t find their money. I argue that we are obsessed with the imaginary consequences of people taking control of their pension pots … Continue reading
Financial advisers – how do we know if our drawdown strategies stack up?
This blog’s for financial advisers who have a duty to consumers to assess the value of what they’re doing for their clients. It is also of interest to anyone who fancies themselves as their own adviser when it … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Tagged Consumer duty, Drawdown, financial advisers, IFAs, Pensions, VFM
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Opperman and Stride give pensions a dream result.
Social media never sleeps 20.06: Guy Opperman appointed MoS at DWP This announcement had yet to appear on the Government’s Ministerial website , the headline is from Order Order – the unofficial news channel for the Westminster Village, Breaking news came from … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Tagged DWP, Guy Opperman, LDI, Mel Stride, Pensions, politics, Steve Webb, Treasury
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Will pension schemes’ hunger for gilts return?
We had been warned, In February 2006 the Times ran an article that began THE headlong rush of British pension funds into already overpriced long-dated gilts was likened yesterday to trying to squeeze an elephant into a Mini. Tim Bond, … Continue reading
Happy 10th birthday , auto-enrolment
Yesterday was deemed to be the 10th anniversary of the start of auto-enrolment. When he announced the staging timetable in 2012, Steve Webb said Automatic enrolment will begin on time this October, taking up to 10 million people into pension … Continue reading
Linked-in groups make friends and influence people
I have been running a number of linked in groups since 2009, the most successful of which is AgeWage and Pension PlayPen. It uses the power of the linked in database and algorithm to attract members to it. In the … Continue reading
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Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad
There is an aspect of the letter from TPR to Work and Pensions Select Committee which we believe warrants unpacking: “Schemes that used LDI strategies to lessen the impact of falling or volatile interest rates over the past … Continue reading
Waking up to systemic risk signalled by the LDI crisis.
It’s estimated that the “leverage” or borrowing within LDI inflated the exposure of UK pensions to long dated and index linked gilts by £1tr (£500bn became £1.5 trillion through the use of shadow banking). These numbers are so huge that … Continue reading
Mel Stride takes over at DWP – pensions should celebrate.
Restoring the public’s confidence in pensions took a big step forward yesterday. Mel Stride was appointed to be Secretary of State (SOS) for the DWP. It means that for the first time since David Gauke held the post, we have … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative, DC DWP Pension, DWP, HMT, LDI, Mel Stride, Pensions, Rishi Sunak, Sunak, Treasury
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The public’s bullshit detector caused the “pension pandemonium”.
There were two quite separate dynamics to today’s Pension PlayPen coffee morning. Speaking on behalf of the millions of members of workplace pensions scared stiff by talk of a pension crisis was Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at AJ … Continue reading