This is a blog about a chance meeting on social media that got me thinking how lucky we are to have the web, social media and free to read information that broadens our minds.

After all these years, I still get flattered by people commenting on my blog. I got an inquiry yesterday from someone called Per U.K. Linnemann, (I thought at first it might be a joke account).

He wanted to know about English CDC.

I had a look around and I sent him this, it’s a very good state of play from a young researcher , James Mirza-Davies – (I expect James will get snapped up by the PPI or PLSA on the basis of this paper which I share more widely -let’s hope he does more of this).

Had our online chat gone no further, I’d have read a concise account of English CDC and found a young researcher to follow.

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But back to Per U.K. Linneman.

Per’s asked for some info, I could oblige, we started discussing Royal Mail’s CDC – (which I hope will begin in July).

I’d played it safe and sent him the Parliamentary commentary (above). But rather than leaving it there, we’d carried on chatting away with me wittering on. By now I thought it sensible to find out a little about this intelligent man,

My sources suggest that there is a second CDC application in (or on its way), it’s not my church’s scheme  but not far off. All the same,  two swallows don’t make a summer .

One thing lead to another

As the morning progressed, we started talking ideal pensions

Per’s question

The topic is important. Perhaps the discussion should deal with how “ideal” pension plans could be designed seen from the perspective of retirees.

My response

I’m 63 I  and I want

1. choice
2. a firm suggestion to help me choose
3. a way to turn pot to pension guaranteed
4. a way to turn pot  to pension not guaranteed
5. a flexible alternative called drawdown

Looking back at what I needed as a 23 year old , I guess..

1. A pension promise at the end – estimate based on contributions
2. an investment strategy done for me – default
3. a pot for life which went with me from job to job
4. option to opt out
5. State pension as a platform
5. a dashboard so I could plot my progress towards goals
6. choice of goals to target

Social media broadens the mind

A lot of the criticism of social media focuses on the very obvious harm it can bring to young vulnerable people for whom it brings playground bullying into after-school life.

The noise drowns out the immense network of interactions that allow for free flow of thought on subjects as abstruse as how to spend a pension pot. Stefan Lundberg has shown how ideas from around the world can be synthesised through monthly webinars, in a rather less ordered way, Steve Goddard’s Pension PlayPen coffee morning sessions do the same.

Necessarily these create cliques, but the use of recordings mean that ideas can be shared more widely. There are archives of the meetings and even  the “chats” that accompany them can be curated and shared.

But most of all, these conversations online can give rise to real-time meetings. Maybe Per and I will never meet (I have never met Per Andelius from Sweden). Good people, good ideas and ultimately good products that help people with the nastiest hardest problem in finance.

Danish actuarial brilliance, brings home the Danish Bacon

Now for breakfast.