I’m off to hear Nausicaa Delfas at the Professional Pensions Live event in the City. She’s kicking off early (9 am) but I’ll be in the front row and hope she’ll be explaining more about this venture on the Pension Regulator’s part.

My firm AgeWage went through the FCA’s innovation sandbox in the early years of the decade, we were pioneering work on VFM and I hope it can be used as VFM grows. We need to help employers, trustees and ultimately savers determine what is value for their money.

This will be the case as we move this summer to thinking about VFM in “decumulation”. Value for money in retirement is three dimensional, people want to know the immediate income, the sustainability of their pension and its capacity to deliver protection from inflation transparently.

I know TPR and FCA are working much closer today than they were then, I’m pleased to see that work on VFM is progressing hand in hand. You should take a minute (well 30 minutes!)  to listen to this. Nike Tross, Patrick Coyne are the regulators in question. Patrick looks like being the new head of policy.

A friend of mine joked that AgeWage and Pension SuperHaven should be early wins for TPR. I wouldn’t be so bold. I want TPR and FCA to be aware of what we are doing and happy that we are onside and not committing offences in scoring goals.

I guess that TPR and FCA are jointly the VAR for pension goalscoring.  VAR to most of us is short for Video Assistant Referee. The law is laid down at a high level but administrated by referees on the pitch and backed up by VAR. I know that there are investment experts who will claim VAR as “Value at Risk” but I don’t think you win with the mass audience!

My other passion, Pension SuperHaven has been working closely with the DWP for some time and we are hoping that the Video Assistant Referee is close to taking its decision so we can get on with the game! The game needs new “scheme models” to deliver better value for money for savers and spenders of pension wealth.