I’ve been vaguely involved with the Phoenix Investment Only proposition since the start of the century. It started out as a Winterthur initiative until it was overtaken by Axa. Phoenix took on the challenge and it is now providing investment administration services to DC schemes in competition with Legal & General and relative newcomer Mobius.

A long time ago , I met with Holly McKay who asked me why institutional pension providers didn’t see advantage in organising assets using new technology and linking customers to their investments in a more engaged way. At the time , it was still common for large DC schemes to use proprietary platforms or use custodial services, the idea of hiring out a third party to do the work was too radical (at least that was what Holly and I concluded).

Maybe 15 years later , I found myself sitting in a room with institutional investors , FNZ’s Tom Lovett , Phoenix CIS and Richard Parkin – the doyen of the institutional funds industry. Phoenix itself was represented by Michael Ambery and the host was Jess Williams.

Things have moved on and Jess Williams of Phoenix CIS chaired an event that focussed on delivering better retirement solutions for DC savers, that considered the new world of Consumer Duty and the reality that most DC savers don’t have or want access to financial advice.

How do you get people taking good decisions on how to allocate their retirement savings without an adviser? Parkin and Lovett considered these questions from a technological and regulatory perspective. Rene Poisson, until recently on the Standard Life Master Trust and sill Chair of JP Morgan’s mighty DC fund, spoke to the same issues

I mentioned the former members of the British Steel Pension Scheme who , collectively took a transfer of £3.2bn from trustees who had held this money to pay pensions and chose to go their own way. Much of that money is still invested in SIPPs and may have grown since withdrawal. The problems facing the steelworkers today are about how to spend their savings.

Edi Truell compared the plethora of choices available to retail savers to the state of European airlines 20 years ago with a high number of choices leading to passenger confusion. Concentration of choice through consolidation and focus on getting people from A to B has led to a better deal for consumers who now get what they want at the right price without things going wrong.

Truell went on to liken the decisions facing those in DC workplace pensions to those of European air travellers 15 years ago. To a degree he was supported by Michael Ambery who recognised the need for non-advised savers to default into products that they understood and did what they said on the packet. Like the air choices of today.

I suspect that there are two complimentary visions at play here. Some £60bn transferred into private hands by way of CETVs between 2016 and 2020 (the heyday of transfers). A lot of this money is looking for safe products and could be well accommodated by master trusts if they could provide simple product that people could understand.

But much of that money ( and a lot of the mature money in workplace pensions) is flowing in the opposite direction ,seeking opportunities to provide the wealthy with flexibility in retirement to plan their lifestyle around their finances and vice -versa.

Investment platforms, like Phoenix CIS are well positioned to support both constituencies and it was interesting to see FNZ coming at the question from a retail perspective as it was to hear Edi Truell speak as an institutional investor.

This was a timely and interesting session that prompted a lot of discussion afterwards. Thanks to Phoenix for setting it up.