Category Archives: dc pensions

“Accelerators” How a student wants to embed “pensions” in Britain’s start-ups

I’ve written before about Josh Collins, a student who’s managed to get a first in mechanical engineering without sitting his  A levels (it’s hard to do exams when you are homeless from 16-18.) Josh sent me his thoughts on how … Continue reading

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Second mover advantage – UK can trump US 401(k)

    Here’s an analysis of what’s going on in yankee-doodle-land, especially with their workplace pensions. Once again I’m grateful to Per Andalus for the prompt Commentators often point to the US 401K and IRA markets as models for the UK … Continue reading

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Why Face to Face Guidance may be impossible.

  I didn’t know what to expect from the Life Planning Association, whose meeting I attended on Wednesday as a guest of Wladek Koch. What I got was an insight that makes sense of why I believe Face to Face … Continue reading

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The Queens Speech; the sausage sandwich game – for pensions!

The Pensions Reforms in the Queens Speech had been broadly flagged in the Sunday Telegraph and subsequently. Nonetheless, the inclusion of Defined Ambition Pensions (aka CDC) (aka Target Pensions) is still a major surprise and will further stretch the UK … Continue reading

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Ten mistakes CDC cannot repeat.

CDC (Target Pensions Plans)  look likely to happen If, as now seems likely, we get the easements in a Pensions Bill to run collective DC schemes then the pressure will turn on those (like me) who have lobbied for change– … Continue reading

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“I’m pretty sure my client has a pension issue..”

  This is as close as I can get to a verbatim conversation I had on the phone with the head of a small practice of accountants yesterday-it is edited to concentrate on the core issue she had – what … Continue reading

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Advisory mastertrusts? – Nein Danke!

  There are now over 70 master trusts in the UK.  Everyone agrees that most are and will remain sub-scale. This is a concern to a risk-based Pensions Regulator and to others keen to restore public confidence in pensions. The … Continue reading

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A great way to deliver the Guidance Guarantee (for the right employer)

Josh Collins   In recent weeks, I’ve been taking the temperature of the pension trustees of large employers and found that enthusiasm for providing guidance to employees at retirement is limited. This is understandable. Do trustees want to become surrogate … Continue reading

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Towards common data standards for auto-enrolment

The Chartered Institute for Payroll and Pension Professionals and their “Friends of AE” stitched me up with writing up the output of a working group comprising a lot of old’uns and a couple of delightful “young’uns”. Here, for the general enlightenment of others and the … Continue reading

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Is this Master Trust Assurance Framework fit for purpose?

There is an important debate to be had on the regulation of master trusts. That debate is about how we prevent poor standards invading what is currently a very well run part of workplace pensions. Until the past two weeks, I … Continue reading

Posted in dc pensions, de-risking, DWP, governance, pension playpen, pensions, Treasury | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 73 Comments