Category Archives: accountants
Planning Finances or Selling Insurance?
I’ve written a couple of blogs this week about my need for financial planning and my fear of wealth management. To repeat again, I don’t want to be treated as wealthy, but I do need help planning my saving and … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, advice gap, pensions
Tagged accountant, advice, HMRC, Insurance, pension playpen, pensions, VAT
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“Breaking ranks” with a pernicious orthodoxy.
In a significant interview with the FT, Michael Higgins, former chair of the Pension Regulator and chair of a £12bn pension trust argues that valuing pension liabilities using the gilt yield is leading to a …. “significant misallocation of resources — … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, Bankers, pensions
Tagged Consultants, contrarian, Deficit, FABI, Funding, Infrastructure, John O'Higgins, pensions, TPR
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Why pensions pinch your pay packet
We now know that we are unlikely to get a national pay rise for the rest of the decade. We are worse off in terms of wages than we were ten years ago. What we get paid matters and with … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, economics, pension playpen, pensions
Tagged costs, Pay, pension, Public Sector Pensions, Salary
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Why there is no “opt-out” for the self-employed.
I get annoyed when I hear pension experts opine on including the self-employed in auto-enrolment (1). I don’t see much self-employment on their CVs, I certainly don’t see many of them being self-employed out of necessity. But most of … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, advice gap, auto-enrolment, dc pensions, pensions, Pensions Regulator, Politics
Tagged auto enrolment, DWP, HMRC, Payroll, pensions, PSDs, self-employed, workplace Pensions
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“Nothing” is very much wrong with defined benefit pension schemes.
This week I was asked this question by a civil servant (not directly involved with pensions). Ignorant question: What in regulation or law would prevent a DB pension scheme being valued based on the actual assets as opposed to the … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, pensions
Tagged Actuarial, Con Keating, Derek Benstead, Government, nada te turbe, pensions, Wendy Handcock
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Shouldn’t Pension Schemes CREATE jobs? #CIPD
News that ballooning pension deficits are hitting profits and leading to hiring freezes is both unwelcome and unacceptable. Pension schemes should be benefiting UK businesses, enabling them to retire those becoming less productive and hire the best new talent. But … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, advice gap, pensions
Tagged CIPD, Deficits, defined benefits, FABI, first actuarial, ft, jobs, Kevin Wesbroom, la-la thinking, pensioners, pensions, Ros Altmann
6 Comments
Strange ideas – Con Keating debunks pension’s received wisdom
A number of extremely strange beliefs have emerged in the course of correspondence arising from earlier articles that introduced methods for the evaluation of pension liabilities which do not invoke any external factor. Take the idea of using market prices … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, happiness, pensions
Tagged Accrual, Con Keating, FABI, first actuarial, Mercer, pension retulator, pensions, PPF7800
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The risk in “de risking”
Defined benefit pensions are delicate mechanisms designed for the purpose of providing pensions for generations of employees. Decisions taken in the last twenty years first to close DB schemes to new entrants, then to future accrual to current members and … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, advice gap, pensions
Tagged auto enrolment, DB, de-risking, Deficit, defined benefit, FABI, first actuarial, pensions, TPR
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The charges of the light brigade
The publication by the Investment Association of a report that puts hidden costs in funds on a par with the Loch Ness Monster has been met with elation by fund managers and derision by their customers. Robin’s right; I remember … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, actuaries, pensions, target date funds
Tagged Charge of the light brigade, FCA, IGCs, Investment Association, pensions, Policy debate, tennyson
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“Workie Vicit” – tPR on the state of AE
The Pension Regulator has published its snappily entitled Automatic enrolment commentary and analysis report 2015/16 The first question I asked as I opened its 45 pages was “who’s it for?“. TPR’s primary stakeholder is the DWP which funds it and … Continue reading
Posted in accountants, advice gap, auto-enrolment, pensions
Tagged auto enrolment, D, DB, DWP, Mastertrust, NEST, staging, the Pensions Regualtor, TPR, Workie
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