I found myself in that grim building in London’s Queen Street – the Connaught rooms. Fortunately the company made up for the surroundings (has no one thought of having locatable toilets in the place?).
The occasion, an SG Conference on paying income from pots or by-passing pots with CDC.
I went to support my friend Terry Pullinger who is the well built man in the middle of the panellists. His session was the better for him as he had no time to beat around the bush. In a few minutes he put the thoughts of ordinary people to a panel and audience of not so ordinary pension experts.
There were others in the afternoon (when I could get there) whose views I like . Massi of BlackRock and David Hutchins of Alliance Bernstein are people who understand how members can get pensions out of workplace pensions and though Massi talks of CDC and David of target funds, they both have members to the fore in their work.
It was good to finish the event with Angela Staral of People’s Partnership/Pension
David Porter’s now a colleague of hers and made a good chair.
But what I noticed from the talks and questions was how far we’ve drifted from the ideas of pensions that I started with over 40 years ago. Apart from Terry Pullinger, I don’t think anyone in the room had much to say about what people want and need. Instead we all seemed to be obsessed by solutions and products and how they could be sold to those who pick up the bills (the members/savers/employees) of workplace pensions.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an SG event and it’s great to see they have progressed so far since I helped Stephen Glover out. I think there is a good balance here between sponsors and the needs of the audience and the audience are clever and influential people. This is a winning way of getting people to find out what’s going on without a trip to Liverpool and a significant bill for attending.
Thanks to SG for choosing such a topical subject to discuss and getting the right people in the room. Finally, a thank you to Elena Zhmurova of the Pensions Regulator who was decent enough to stay behind afterwards so we could talk about ways forward. People attending makes memories and I’ll remember yesterday for good people trying hard to get to a good way to turn pots to pensions. They should listen to Terry for a simple answer – we don’t really need pots at all.
I’ve got six old workplace pots scattered around and honestly the admin of merging them has put me off for years, so a simple answer like Terry’s is refreshing to hear.
As I have mentioned in past posts, median tenure of American workers has been less than 5 years for the past 7 decades. America now has 800,000+ defined contribution plans with over 125MM accounts. Nearly one in four of those accounts belongs to someone who no longer works for the employer who sponsors the plan.
So, having “six old workplace pots scattered around” is not all that unusual for today’s 60 year old contemplating converting those assets into an income stream.
Asset retention (in the predecessor retirement plan), asset aggregation (in whichever plan the individual selects) and account consolidation may be a very cumbersome process in the states.
In SECURE 2.0 2022 legislation, Congress decided to direct the IRS/Treasury to provide guidance on how to better facilitate direct transfers from one employer-sponsored retirement plan to another, and from an employer-sponsored retirement plan to an Individual Retirement Account.
Nearly four years later, IRS Notice 2026-49 was issued in August 2026 as a means to implement Section 324 of the SECURE 2.0 Act which provides for sample forms written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average person to be used by both transferring and receiving plans. The notice asks for comments through October 23, 2026.
The goals are: (i) protect identities, (ii) require direct communication between plans, (iii) standardize the data needed, (iv) mandate plans verify accuracy, and (v) require electronic communications and money transfers where possible.
Use of the forms is voluntary. The IRS proposes a five step process. The larger issue is encouraging electronic transfers of monies.
When a youngster in our extended family emigrated he consolidated his DC pensions into just two – easy enough to manage and yet giving some diversification.
On the other hand he’s already cashed-in his one foreign pension to pay a tax bill. Hm.
On the third hand my wife cashed in two UK pensions decades ago when the rules were different, invested in owner-occupied property, and did very well out of it.
Ye cannae predict the future, Cap’n.