Category Archives: Pension Freedoms
Running Pension Policy – Snapchat Style!
There are leaks and there are leaks, but this feels like the Treasury pulling the plug out with the bath full and ready! Take a look at the timeline of the Times’ story (12.01am); this is no idle tittle-tattle from the … Continue reading
Posted in Pension Freedoms, pensions, Treasury
Tagged DWP, HMRC, HMT, pensions, Ros Altmann, tax relief, tax-reform, Treasury
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So what would a pension exit charge cap look like?
Yesterday I spoke on Money Box in support of a cap on exit fee penalties from legacy personal pensions. Claire Trott spoke well in opposition and I’m quite sure that the ABI will take comfort in her argument that a … Continue reading
Posted in actuaries, dc pensions, Pension Freedoms, pensions, Pensions Regulator
Tagged ABI, advice, Commission, exit fees, exit penalties, FCA, legacy, pension, Regulator, TPR
2 Comments
Can the pension insurers win back their customers’ respect?
IGCs are ours to use and not the insurers to castrate. Continue reading
Posted in governance, investment, later life, leadership, Pension Freedoms, pension playpen, pensions
Tagged advosors, Fiduciary, Government, IFAs, IGC, Inurer, pension, Pension Freedoms, Politics, Ros Altmann
4 Comments
TEE(n) – Why would Osborne do anything else?
I was re-reading Steve Webb’s article in the Daily Telegraph where he outlines why he thinks Pensions ISAs would be a disaster. The more I read it, the less I get it. Let’s go back to basics. It is … Continue reading
Posted in Pension Freedoms, pension playpen, pensions, Politics, Public sector pensions
Tagged EET, Michael Johnson, NHS, pensions, tax relief, tax-incentivisation, TEE, TEEn
5 Comments
“10 years too early, 10 years too late” – CDC stands on on an empty platform
Nearly eight years ago, the Government Actuary ‘s Department produced a paper that effectively killed CDC. It argued that CDC could not be relied upon to deliver benefits with the same certainty as our DB system and that there was no … Continue reading
Posted in advice gap, CDC, Pension Freedoms, pension playpen, pensions
Tagged CDC, DWP, FAMR, Financial literacy, GAD, Pension Freedoms, pensions, Personal emplowement, Politics, Ros Altmann, Steve Webb, Treasury
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How rivers flow
When you are planning a flood defence system, you look at how your rivers flow in normal times. Then you stress test your topography by filling up the rivers in your model, with too much water, you watch to see … Continue reading
Con Keating on the future of CDC – (pt 3)
This is the third of three blogs from Con which will in future appear in Professional Pensions. The idea that individual DC will produce pension outcomes that are satisfactory for the majority of retirement savers is now thoroughly discredited, as is … Continue reading
Posted in CDC, Pension Freedoms, pension playpen, pensions, Pensions Regulator
Tagged CDC, Con Keating, decumulatioin, default, defaults, Money, Retirement
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Heard the one about the Englishman, the Australian and the American?
If you are a fan of such jokes, read no further – the Social Market Foundation’s (SMF) study “Golden Years? What freedom and choice will mean for UK pensioners“, contains all three characters (unsexed), but there the joking ends. This is … Continue reading
Posted in annuity, Australia, CDC, Paul Lewis, Pension Freedoms, pension playpen
Tagged annuities, Battle of Britain, Freedom and Choice, Just Retirement, Pension Sise, SCF, SMF, Social Market Foundation
2 Comments
Why this carnage at the Investment Association?
I think I owe Daniel Godfrey an apology. I met him on a couple of occasions and he impressed upon me he was serious about transparency of cost and charges. I didn’t believe him- or at least I thought he … Continue reading
Turning payroll administrators into pension managers
A payroll administrator pays someone tomorrow, a pension manager pays someone for ever. A workplace pension is no more than deferred pay, you remove money from today’s pay-packet and it is returned later, when there’s no money … Continue reading