Category Archives: NEST

It’s a wrap trap – but who’s been caught?

If you thought you were sick of pensions, imagine  the nausea of the life company CEO. If you are such a beast and reading this, you are probably are American or European and your company brought into the UK a few years back … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, dc pensions, Financial Education, First Actuarial, NEST, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Light in the lifestyle tunnel!

The way in which your DC pot magically turns from investing in shares to investing in cash and Government bonds is called lifestyle and it involves hundreds of transactions in 60+ months before you buy your pension. All of these transactions involve … Continue reading

Posted in actuaries, dc pensions, defined aspiration, First Actuarial, governance, Henry Tapper blog, life insurance, NEST, pensions, target date funds | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

DC Trustees – asleep at the wheel?

I was spending insomniac hours reading posts about savings on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com when I came upon a thread about the ABI 14 agreeing to disclose transactional costs from next summer. There wasn’t much on the comments board – one post stood out. … Continue reading

Posted in actuaries, corporate governance, David Pitt-Watson, dc pensions, First Actuarial, Management, NEST, pension playpen, pensions, Personal Accounts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

NEST Insight; what the 11m+ “unpensioned” think.

NEST has produced a chunky report that “takes the temperature of automatic enrolment”. This promises to be the first of a series and as the first has five years of accumulated insights to lay before us. I thoroughly recommend it … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, corporate governance, customer service, David Pitt-Watson, First Actuarial, leadership, Liberal Democrats, napf, NEST, Payroll, pensions, Personal Accounts, Retirement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Taking meaningful investment choices off the shelf

  I’m  pleased to hear that NEST is planning to explain its investment plans that everyone can understand.I visited their offices last week and spoke with their chief investment officer about this. I hope that as part of this explanation , he’ll … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, club pension, dc pensions, de-risking, London, NEST, pensions, Popcorn Pensions, Retirement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Dear OFT….

I see you are looking into pensions and will be completing a “market study” by August that  will focus on value for money and the size of pension pot savers end up with at retirement. I hear it will look … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, dc pensions, First Actuarial, NEST, pensions, Retirement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Seven things to know about the new state pension!

        These charts have been kindly donated by Citywire and their New Model Adviser team (to whom we should be very grateful). Each one of them surprised me. I dedicate this little blog to one of my heroes, Barbara Castle. If we … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, club pension, NEST, pension playpen, pensions, Retirement, steve webb | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

“Comply or explain” – will “bottom up” regulation work for pensions?

“Comply or Explain” is a phrase that crept into the “corporate governance” lexicon after the 1992 Cadbury report. The idea’s that rather than demand compliance with Government standards, regulators give companies the option to comply or explain why they haven’t. … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, club pension, corporate governance, customer service, Fiduciary Management, Financial Education, napf, NEST, pension playpen, pensions, Retirement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

The Regulator’s right to be cautious about mastertrusts

Over the past two years we’ve seen a number of multi-employer occupational schemes spruced up for auto-enrolment. We’ve seen a number of insurers and asset managers set up as the providers of master trusts. We’ve had a few financial advisers … Continue reading

Posted in actuaries, annuity, auto-enrolment, club pension, dc pensions, governance, NEST, Payroll, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Savers put themselves first!

A happy result of dissing Michael Johnson’s attacks on pension saving early in the week was that I got a copy of his paper “Put the saver first” direct from the great man. He calls up the spirit of Ron Sandler– … Continue reading

Posted in auto-enrolment, David Pitt-Watson, dc pensions, NEST, pension playpen, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment