Author Archives: henry tapper

About henry tapper

Founder of the Pension PlayPen, Director of First Actuarial, partner of Stella, father of Olly . I am the Pension Plowman

Now and then.

Posted on February 14, 2019

It all started so well – and ended so sadly. Yesterday NOW’s owner, the Government backed Danish Pension Fund announced it was selling it’s UK master trust to Cardano, the Dutch Fiduciary Manager. NOW were the first organisation to seriously … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How do we use our IGCs?

Posted on February 13, 2019

My key words in the title are “we” and “our”. The Independent Governance Committee’s set up as a result of the failings in contact-based workplace pensions identified by the OFT, are for us – the consumer. They were not set … Continue reading →

Posted in IGC, pensions | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

It’s employers that did it! Rudd should be thanking them for “her” policy success

Posted on February 12, 2019

      I’m pleased to see that attempts to re-write history by the Conservative party have been foiled by the ever-vigilant Cumbo. These were not @conservative party reforms. Automatic enrolment resulted from a cross-party consensus and was introduced by … Continue reading →

Posted in age wage, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Put the champagne back and read the AE facts!

Posted on February 11, 2019

For all their well-publicised problems, NOW Pensions continue to talk sense on auto-enrolment and to do so fearlessly. Today is the day when we hit the 10m new savers mark, we were billed as having a discussion on this on … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | 2 Comments

Who are these pension delinquents?

Posted on February 11, 2019

Pension delinquents The weekend has seen a fair bit of interest in pension saving. This morning’s Wake up to Money featured Ros Altmann celebrating 10m new savers auto-enrolled into workplace pensions. Sunday’s lead story was Amber Rudd’s threat that she … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Rudd’s posturing – no help at all

Posted on February 10, 2019

When BHS went belly up, this blog pointed the finger of blame at Philip Green for putting dividends before the pensions of the staff who earned him them. Green coughed up over £350m and the BHS pension scheme restructured into … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

What do we mean by fiduciary care?

Posted on February 9, 2019

Travelling back from Newcastle last week in a much delayed train, the passengers in my carriage were trying to get to sleep. It was tough as the carriage were illuminated by the brightest of stip lights. Eventually some of us … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | 1 Comment

Trustees and transfers

Posted on February 9, 2019

Jo Cumbo’s article in Pensions Expert on contingent charging takes a dim view of trustee behaviour to date. Her idea that advice to stay in a DB scheme could be paid for by docking the original pension has got some … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Pension Transfers need planning permission.

Posted on February 8, 2019

  In an important contribution to the debate on how members of DB plans can pay for advice on whether to transfer out, the FT’s Jo Cumbo calls for the financial advice bill – regardless of whether the answer is “yes” … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | 5 Comments

“Why pensions might just change your life”.

Posted on February 7, 2019

This morning I’m travelling north east to Newcastle on the first train up. I’ll be delivering the graveyard slot for my friend Carsten Staehr at the Cintra Conference. The people I’ll be talking with don’t like pensions, Carsten’s title is … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, pensions | Tagged , , | Leave a comment