I did not have the opportunity to go to PMI’s DC and Master
Trust Symposium last week.
If I had , and stayed close to my colleague Philip Persson , I’d have met Helen Forrest Hall who leads these things and was the guest on the VFM podcast which is reverting to the length of my church’s Sunday morning services.
This would be a very good 40 minute podcast as the discussion is about pensions and how master trusts can deliver them. I am told that the PMI conference was very good and I am sorry to be on compulsory sick leave!
The podcast has yet to come to terms with the concept of a pension funded on the basis of pre-determined contributions (DC). It is however a matter of discussion amongst employers unhappy to leave hapless employees (including themselves) with freedom but no pension.
The podcast went on to berate DWP, TPR and FCA for not providing a VFM measure for “decumulation”. This is like measuring the shape of a litre of water, it depends on the container you offer.
Ask most people want a pension is and they will describe the state pension, an income that lasts as long as its needed , increasing at least as fast as inflation.
Since the DC master trust business has as yet no means to contain the pot it delivers to be spent from 55, there is no way for us to have a measure of the container for value. When we consider pensions from pension saving as pensions, then we can have a VFM for decumulation but not until.
The podcast was good and Helen Forrest Hall the difference from what has come before. But we are still some way from a proper discussion of pensions , saved for while at work.
The discussion of the IFS’ solution to pension freedom got stuck in flex and fix and VFM seemed to lead us towards league tables for annuities.
The best bit of the IFS webinar was the bit at the end when Nest’s Paul Todd explained Nest’s ambitions to pay pensions not flex and fix. The best bit of this VFM pod was when the discussion, led by Helen Forrest Hall, focussed on providing pensions from pension saving.
Let’s hope that the VFM Podcast will have more discussions as it had with Helen Forrest Hall and could have with Paul Todd. There is too much sucking up to the ABI on this pod and not enough genuine ambition to do “pensions”.
