I don’t go to Paris much these days , unlike the great and good visiting Amundi and OECD (Standard Life!).

It is so long that I have jetted around Europe that I wonder what it is like! All of these people must know so much more about pensions from visiting Paris!

Here’s my friend Michael Ambery, off with an Australian who shines up purple on linked in (must be posh). Mike isn’t calling himself a pension expert, he calls himself a retirement savings expert. No pretence – but that was six months ago – I hope to have coffee with Mike tomorrow and I’ll tease him! He knows the difference between an annuity and an invested pension! One size doesn’t suit us all, that’s why we have pension freedom – innovation!

My simple life is spent working out how to help organisations like Standard to become pension providers- rather than just savings house.

Could Britain be good at Pensions?

Having had a decade of lectures from the OECD, here is something quite new. Here is Dan, explaining his view of priorities for mega-funds. I couldn’t agree more. What Amundi made of it, I’m not sure!

What the OECD made of it, I’ve no idea!

But as People’s manage a lot of People’s money, I expect they were wildly in agreement!

Here is Professional Pension’s report

The UK will become a “global innovator” in the development of retirement income solutions, The People’s Pension has said.

Speaking today (27 June) during a panel at the Amundi World Investment Forum in Paris, People’s Pension chief investment officer Dan Mikulskis predicted that from 2027, the UK will have launched at least six new innovative retirement products.

The prediction comes after the government published its long-awaited Pension Schemes Bill, which includes a provision to require all defined contribution schemes to offer members a default route to an income in retirement.

Mikulskis said: “The UK is going to be the country to watch when it comes to retirement products on offer to consumers, it will be a global innovator in this space. I personally think it’s going to be very interesting, and I think we are going to see some real innovations, at least six new products.

“There is an argument that investing is often the easy part of the solution, but I think that the hardest part is how we, as a sector, guide workplace pension savers into retirement and help them understand their retirement savings as a pot for life.”

I think that Dan’s talking about “turning pots to pensions” and I think that Dan and Paul Todd of Nest are flexing the £80bn they have between them to deliver retirement income to the best part of 20m Brits.

And before we throw stones at Dan for having the cheek to tell the OECD we’ll lead the word at “pot to pensions”, let’s remember that this is just what we did before we decided that insurance was the only thing an occupational DB scheme could aspire to!

Let’s hope that Nest, when they come out with their plan for the 14m of us (including me) who have pots with them,  will have an income that is invested and secure at the same time.

Michael Ambery knows that there is a world out there beyond the corridors of the insurance company where the money people save is invested and not used to de-risk liabilities.  Michael Ambery  knows it, Dan knows it and Paul Todd knows it and that’s why I’m pleased to congratulate the Mikulskisan boast!