I understand my state pension but not these statements about my private pension pots.

Posted on January 8, 2026 by henry tapper

Richard Smith is angry. He has five pension pots but he has no idea what income he will get when from 2027 there’s a default pension he will be able to draw. That is apart from Scottish Widow’s explanation that he can expect £500 pa from the £6,290 he’s saved in the pot.

To make life a little easier for those who read this blog, I’ll save you the quotes. You can download a PDF here

With Standard Life he has £1,193, he’s no idea what income he’s going to get from less than £2k

From Nest he’ll get a pot of £249,005 but there’s no idea what kind of income he’ll get, no idea of when and no idea how his pension will keep up with inflation (nice birds though- just like the ones on the TV adverts.

Then there’s another £236, 500.46 (important those pence), that’s with Aviva but he’s no idea about that as income either.

Finally , Richard has £89, 604.34 in his pot withing the Aon Master trust.

I think most people want to know their pension as an income (they don’t know about the cost of an increasing pension – but they will).

They will want to know what happens if they die – will their family continue to get all , some or none of their pension.

For the mast majority of people, tax is down the line, the nature of the guarantees is down the line and flexibility in terms of taking capital is secondary to the starting point , which is what income they will get from their pension.

Of course Richard is fed up, he wants to be able to know what income he will get at what he considers his retirement date and for that to be consistent across his pots.

Richard of course knows he will be able to see something like that as soon as the dashboard is available, But in the meantime he has done his own dashboard with the dashboard he’s posted on linked in and I’ve posted here.

It is not doing any such thing for him! Nest, Standard life, Aviva and Aon Trust have made no attempt to convert his pot into income , giving him only a pot and leaving the rest to him and anyone he employs to explain what he’s getting.

People do not want it to be hard to see the pension. Most of us have learned how to get our state pension. I dug one out from a few years back.

Here’s how it’s been updated to Jan 8th 2025

That’s all I want from my private pensions for starters. Sure I want to find out what happens if I delay taking it and I want to know what my partner gets, but this is the starter.

I want things to be easy and like Richard I only get things simple on my state pension statement (which took me less than a minute to access – including unlocking the data).

 

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Dan Mikulskis and Martin Lewis have a simple story, an investment message!

Posted on January 7, 2026 by henry tapper

This needed to be said.  The article in question can be read from here

Dan talks of DC master trusts but you could have got roughly the same returns whether you were invested in a the default of a DC master trust, in that of Pension Bee’s personal pension or gone out and bought a shares ISA from just about anyone!

The point is not that master trusts changed everything, they didn’t, it’s the fact that for the first time, millions of people are seeing their savings grow faster than their’s ever did before.

I mean the people that Martin Lewis has been talking to for whom Cash ISAs are the natural place to save, where the kind of rates people think about compare with mortgage rates and inflation, not the returns that DC pension schemes have and will deliver.

It’s worth watching the video, it’s what people are getting from their pension without knowing it and this is why People’s and Nest and other workplace pensions are doing what Government wanted Sid to do back in the 1980s.

Lewis’ brilliant 45 minutes is for a generation who never had access to DB pensions and never benefited from it. If you worked for BT or British Airways a quarter of a century ago, you may not have known that your benefits were being paid by returns from investment (mainly in the UK stock markets BTW).

Nowadays, if you are a deferred or actual pensioner your pension is not being paid from investments but from bonds and the like as the DB schemes line up for their end-game. There aren’t a few of them (as Dan mentions) but close on 5,000 DB schemes in the DB end-game queue with assets by and large lined up for buy-out,

That I am afraid is history and not something that the people Martin Lewis is talking to (and Dan invests for), are interested in.

What Martin is talking about and Dan is actually doing, is making our money work as hard as we do.  They are talking about then investing where we work, so that not just our livelihoods are secured , but our pensions are too!

Maybe Dan has a point in not having a go at the CIOs at these big DB funds and maybe we should be asking if they had any choice – throwing out all the growth to pay the LDI bills in 2022. But that’s another story and not the one that he, or Martin or indeed I should be telling.

The story we should be telling is that if you save over time (years not months) you will find yourself making more money if it is invested than put in cash.  That is the story and its message.

Addendum from Chris Johnson of the FT in this morning’s email

That’s why we have to write, read and invest – whether we read the FT and Dan, watch Martin Lewis or do both!

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Risk preferences in DC pensions.

Posted on January 7, 2026 by henry tapper
Sid
Arun

The Pension PlayPen coffee morning on Tuesday 7th January was a father and son act with Arun and Sid Muralidhar talking with us.

Here is the video

We were delighted to hear Dr Arun Muralidhar  and his son outlining a recent paper on Risk Preferences. The link to the paper is here:

https://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A7%3A4528679/detailv2?sid=ebsco%3Aocu%3Arecord&id=ebsco%3Agcd%3A125247543&bquery=IS%201540-6717%20AND%20VI%2016%20AND%20IP%202%20AND%20DT%202017&page=1&link_origin=www.google.com&searchDescription=Journal%20of%20Personal%20Finance%2C%202017%2C%20Vol%2016%2C%20Issue%202&crl=f

Some of you have kindly taken part in the survey already but if you wish to (anonymously) then click here:

https://forms.gle/LvquAPCPsqzxr7u66

Please join the discussion and hear the results which could have a big impact on DC design going forward. What follows is froom Arun Muralidhar

Here are some of the big findings.

1. Used 14 of Kahneman-Tversky’s original questions. Weirdly, our aggregate responses matched just 43% of KT’s aggregate responses (which was the foundation stone of BehavioralFinance)!! YIKES!!
2. Age: NO significant difference in mean risk preferences among our big three age groups (under 25, 25-65, over 65). Reinforces my bias that TDFs and age-based cohort retirement planning is nonsense as these products are not focused on participants’ goals/preferences.
2. Gender: Women in this sample are more risk-seeking on Losses. Maybe less likely to buy annuities?
3. FinancialLiteracy and Education: Education matters more for preferences than FinLit.
4. Political Leaning: Liberals and Conservatives should be getting along as no differences in risk preferences. Those who refused to identify their leanings (or “Other”) are meaningfully different.
5. Geography: MATTERS! N. America (US), different from S. America (Brazil), different from UK, EU and Asia (India). So stop importing American theory and practice on retirement planning.

Basically, as we move to DC globally, design a system that fits the risk preferences of your country. AND ensure individualization of solutions as each of us is unique!!

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Can trustees go against the laws of parliament? Members elect Governments.

Posted on January 7, 2026 by henry tapper

So runs this morning’s headline in the FT (Mary McDougall). The argument that has been put forward by Pensions Minister Torsten Bell and argued for by political economists such as Will Hutton. The debate by an FT journalist (Jo Cumbo) and Will Hutton at the Pensions UK conference this autumn went down these lines.

ordinary people outside the Bank of England

The argument that “Pension sector chiefs worry that being pressured to invest in certain assets could compromise their duty to maximise returns for savers” is being heard, not just in the UK, but according to this article, in other wester countries where funded pensions are mature enough to make a difference to the economy and in particular to sectors starved of capital.

The UK, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany are among countries that have spotted an opportunity to redirect large and growing pension savings pots towards domestic investment to try to kick-start economic growth and funnel cash to sectors such as technology, defence and green energy.

There have been many movements from within pensions to ensure pensions have a purpose, these are lobbies on the CIOs of Pension Funds but there have also been lobbies on retail savers (I responded and am in fossil fuel free investment funds).  What pension funds have found objectionable is not the lobby groups but the threat of legal mandation from above – from Government.

Steve Webb is a Liberal , the Labour party are not liberal, it is hardly surprising that there are many to the right of the liberals who have more extreme view than Webb but let us take Webb’s comments as the middle ground

“It is already hard enough to get people to lock money away and save for the long-term, and confidence in pensions could be seriously undermined if savers believe that their best long-term interests are no longer the top priority of their pension scheme,” said Webb.

This I think is too liberal for most of us. When people found that only 3p of the pound spent went to UK companies when saving with NEST (a Government pension to most people), savers were outraged.

In a week when the UK’s main stock market, tracked by the FTSE 100 index, reached new levels and crossed an important mark of 10,000 points, many people will feel they are missing out

Closing data for January 6th 2026.

If people have a fright, it is that diversification into market weighted global equity funds has found more of their savings in the magnificent seven in California than in Europe (and particularly in the UK). I have over 7% of my fund in one stock (Microsoft).

Webb’s argument that an unconstrained investment strategy that doesn’t channel money into the UK may have worked well as the AI bubble inflated but many (myself included) are not sure that the bubble will stay inflated for ever.

When bankers argue against intervention…

Perhaps the loudest voice for a lack of intervention from Government in how pensions invest has been Lloyds Banking Groups CEO  who is reported by the FT thus

Charlie Nunn said last year that compelling pension funds to allocate to certain assets would be “a form of capital control” and a “difficult slope for an economy that believes it is an open economy”.

Actually, the UK economy is not so dominated by its funded pensions as many of the others it compares with in the OECD

What is different about the UK pension system is that its largest part (in terms of funds) is still in mature DB plans which , to meet the requirements of the Pensions Regulator for low dependency on employers, are invested in low growth sectors , the result of which has been fairly disastrous (see recent blogs on DB performance following an article in the Times)

This is where I find Government intervention in the investment of our pensions and it is not through mandation but through much more insidious influence. The 2021 Pensions Act made it a criminal offence for trustees to invest imprudently, this has made for a legal objection against trustees investing in growth stocks if it can be argued that it puts the member in danger of putting the scheme in deficit , putting the sponsoring employer in trouble and calling on the PPF to bale out pensioners.

I find the bulk of the FT’s argument show how this Government is swimming in a tide that includes a large part of the Western globe.

In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney has launched a “Buy Canada” campaign that prioritises local products for procurement with the aim of making it “the strongest economy in the G7”. In December 2024, Ottawa said it would remove its 30 per cent cap on owning Canadian entities.

The country has also set up a so-called Major Projects Office to fast-track national infrastructure projects and reduce the uncertainty around such programmes, as a way of encouraging investors such as pension funds.

But more pertinently it includes the investment officers of some of our major financial institutions not covered by the legal wrath of Pension Acts and of the regulation that sits behind our laws.

Energy independence and security have been “chronically underinvested in the UK and Europe for decades”, said Mike Eakins, chief investment officer of pensions firm Phoenix Group. “There will definitely be a desire of policymakers for private pension capital to invest more domestically.”

Intervene – Why not? That’s why we elect politicians to parliament

Policymakers in parliament are entrusted by us to get things done, trustees do not have authority to go against the law – created  by those who they also have duty to.

UK markets have moved forward recently

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The scandal of our “DB capitulation” to “de-risking”.

Posted on January 6, 2026 by henry tapper

Meg Baynes’ piece in the Times which I featured on this blog is beginning to get some traction around the world

The simple facts astound this editor of the Economist in New York’s Wall Street.

Let’s remind ourselves of the article in the Times from Meg that got this started

There are people laughing at the simplicity of Meg Baynes as if she were a simpleton. Read my blog- she is no simpleton.Mike is no simpleton, Josh is no simpleton

Meg is pointing out what her generation ought to be astounded at, what Mike Bird is astounded and what the British pensions industry thinks is ok.

Because BA and BT and UISS and Shell (and to a degree Railways) are so de-risked that they cannot take advantage of the returns that everybody else have been enjoying in the past few years.

The truth is that being de-risked meant that money flew out the door in 2022, mostly in October 2022 when the LDI de-risking led to more than half a trillion being paid to banks for the borrowing of gilts. Since than DB plans have been in “surplus”, not because they have done anything right but because they have found what they should always have known if they’d looked at the #FABI index, that they were de-risking a deficit that didn’t exist

This graph was from the start of 2022 , it had looked pretty much the same since 2016 when First Actuarial started it , taken on a common-sensical basis, UK DB pensions weren’t under funded, they were in a position to meet their obligations (pay their pensions).

But having lost over half a trillion in the Budget triggered disaster of October 2022, the DB plans have gone into lockdown, investing very little into growth stocks and preparing for the end-game – a buy-out by US  private market owned insurers and UK insurers dong their best to compete by working eye-watering bond strategies .

Instead of investing for the future, the large and small UK DB pension schemes have battened down the hatches and sat below deck.

There are of course DB schemes that want to get back on deck and set the sails right. Stagecoach have done it and there are schemes like UKAS and ABFoods who never de-risked , stayed on the deck and are now wondering how to spend surpluses,

It need not happen that DB pension schemes suffer the penury brought upon these mighty pensions quoted by Megan. They are in that position because of the wrong ideology introduced in the first decade of the century and overseen by TPR. First Actuarial’s #FABI issue turned out to be right, there was no need for LDI and LDI has led to the awful returns ever since the 2022 budgets for those who have stayed in low-risk investment strategies.

This of course need not be the way to run pension schemes. We do not need to throw pensions out the pram, we can still pay them, we can do so and invest in growth assets which will do a lot better over time than the strategies of the DB plans quoted. The way to do it is today called CDC though it looks very much like the DB we ran in the last century – by and large very well.

We do not have to have a DB pension system that is an  embarrassment to us, which is laughed at on Wall Street and wept at by people in the UK who care for pensions.

DB ripped money out of the bank accounts of large employers when there was no need, when the real investment return needed to “breakeven” was what large DB pension schemes are achieving. Pensions should never have been declared in deficit, they weren’t and there were people from First Actuarial pointing this out.

Now these companies who dived into LDI are gloating they are in surplus while having lost a lot of money since 2020. It takes youngsters from the City and from Wall Street to point out what lunacy our DB investment strategy was and is.

Thanks Meg for pointing out the obvious with the fresh eyes of youth

 

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Why unions should take CDC to employers and their under pensioned members

Posted on January 6, 2026 by henry tapper

Jack Jones – TUC pensions officer

A large part of the British workforce have trade unions working for them to provide them with decent conditions at work, pay for work and benefits when work ends and retirement begins.

We had in unionised companies a DB culture which meant that if you were a union person you most likely got a pension based on your final or average salary. But employers rejected the terms on which they provided defined benefit pensions, they were not prepared to underwrite promises at a price that they would not afford.

The replacement was a DC savings system where union members got an agreed payment paid into a pot which was called a pension but which (after 2014) was wealth management first and pension only if the member chose an annuity.

David Pitt-Watson

David Pitt-Watson , a Labour economist and campaigner for better pensions, took up the campaign to offer members of unions and indeed the millions not represented by unions. He argued for a middle way, CDC, which provided better pensions for members than could be bought out of the DC pot. Pound for pound, he explained that money into CDC produced 60% more pension than a DC plan. Since DB was gone in the private sector, he had the sense to promote CDC as the way forward for those saving into workplace DC workplace savings plans.

The unions leaders found it hard to accept that DB had gone and many who I speak to feel that CDC is a second best version of the DB guarantees they held close to their hearts. But the simplicity of CDC is a simple enhancement on what members get round now which does not create additional cost to employers.

Indeed it is possible to see employers benefiting much more from CDC than they do from workplace savings. There are many employers who are still committed to paying deferred pay to their workforce when they leave work and CDC satisfies that aim.

It is now time for unions to step to the front of the campaign for CDC. The Pensions Minister advertises the whole of life CDC plan as providing up to 60% more pension than the equivalent contributions into a DC savings plan. Why would an employer not want to offer a 60% pay rise to retiring staff if it cost them no more than their current workplace pension contributions? Why walk away from that?

I speak to some union representatives who see themselves having no place in the pension debt, they argue that the design of non-DB pensions is a job for consultants and that they are excluded from private sector pensions. I disagree.

People who work in unionised workplaces need the unions to stand up for them. If employers do not hear from the unions about the advantage of better pay in retirement, they will do nothing and the CDC opportunity will pass away.

So I hope that the TUC , led by its pension officer Jack Jones,  will work with the soon to be “Lord”David Pitt-Watson to make multi-employer CDC happen in 2027.

That means a process that starts now, giving employers a year to decide on and implement change in workplace pensions.

That change will cost employers very little relative to the benefits CDC will bring over DC. There is general consensus among actuaries and lawyers that a CDC plan provides better outcomes for members of CDC than DC plans.

Clearly there is reluctance amongst organisations profiting from DC plans to adapt to a collective approach but this can be done. I am not arguing here the case for any one approach to CDC, any one provider over another (that is a discussion for the lawyers and consultants).

I am arguing the case for CDC to be moved up the agendas the unions have with their employers and that starts with the pension officers beyond Jack Jones working together.

I hope that David Pitt-Watson will lead from the front , as he has done for many years, I hope that Bryn Davies will use his influence, another member of the upper house and I hope that the individual unions will step up and take CDC to their hearts.

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The legacy of risk aversion haunts superfunds

Posted on January 6, 2026 by henry tapper

I no longer have anything to do with superfunds, of whatever form, but I am sorrowful that part of  the Government has yet again shown it is captured by an aversion to growth.

There is nothing that superfunds are exempted from when it comes to levies, the only exemption they get is from common sense.

It seems that somebody in the DWP or HMT’s policy making team has determined that a superfund’s covenant to meet the pensions of pensioners is inferior to the 4,900 employers who support DB plans.

There is a clear message to the market here and that is that the superfund is not a safe place for an employer to send its pension scheme, it is a message to its trustees too.

Professional Pensions has reported

In its response to the PPF consultation, TPT Retirement Solutions said that, while it supported the lifeboat fund’s decision to reduce the regular levy to zero, it had “serious concerns” over its decision to continue to charge the levy on superfunds.

Last year, TPT announced its intention to launch a run-on superfund. Since then, reports have suggested a number of other workplace pension providers are also interested in the superfund space.

TPT said the PPF’s decision to continue charging the alternative covenant scheme (ACS) levy, which applies to schemes, including superfunds, without a substantive employer covenant does not proportionately reflect the risk superfunds pose.

It said schemes entering superfunds must be able to demonstrate an increased probability of benefits being paid in full – something TPT said meant superfunds represented less risk than regular DB schemes.

Furthermore, TPT said the availability a capital buffer would “put schemes in superfunds in a stronger funding position than regular DB schemes”.

TPT said it also opposed a continuation of the ACS levy on grounds of fairness – noting that regular schemes and members will now benefit from the zero levy, but those moving to a superfund will not, despite having paid the levy until the transaction.

TPT Retirement Solutions head of policy and external affairs Ruari Grant said:

“The PPF’s decision to reduce the regular levy to zero makes complete sense, but there’s no reason the same logic can’t be applied for superfunds. These schemes are to be held to a very high level by the regulator and will therefore pose minimal risk to the PPF.

“We are aware PPF is wary of future models emerging which may pose more risk, and of the risk were superfunds to reach ‘significant scale’. However, we’d urge them to take a more proportionate approach for the market that currently exists, and remain flexible in future – rather than risking stifling growth and innovation at the outset.”

I couldn’t agree with the newly appointed Ruari Grant. There is an extraordinary silence coming not just from TPR, PPF or his former employers Pensions UK about innovation. The Aberdeen innovation in taking on someone else’s scheme has had no congratulation from any of these organisations. Why?

There continues to be a legacy of fear of risk that here is a double contradiction of what the Pension Schemes Bill is trying to achieve. The Bill is looking to encourage the continuance of schemes , as Stagecoach’s scheme has continued by swapping its sponsor. The Bill is looking to see pensions take bold steps to help Britain recover growth in its economy.

The PPF’s decision to levy the ACS levy on Clara which has launched, TPT which is looking to and a range of other organisations looking to offer capital backing as a buffer instead of an employer, is a failure of common sense. The rules governing the security that superfunds and capital backed sponsoring have been 8 years in the making and now agreed as offering  equivalent security to that offered by an annuity,- bulk purchased for members.

For all its talk of innovation, parts of the PPF/TPR/DWP/HMT policy making appears to have been infected by funk. This plays into the hands of the insurance companies who have been able to own the “end-game” for a number of years now.

I do not see this risk aversion as consistent with anything else being legislated or regulated. But alongside the spooked silence over the innovation of the Stagecoach/Aberdeen sponsor transfer, it suggests to me that the Government is not yet free of its anathema to growth.

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How important are risk preferences for DC – Muralidhar 10.30 am Today

Posted on January 5, 2026 by henry tapper
Pension Playpen Logo

Muralidhar.

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Where do we stand on melt-up of equity markets?

Posted on January 5, 2026 by henry tapper

The brilliant Katie Martin ends her opinion piece questioning why the markets are having a good time when they shouldn’t be.

This is uncomfortable for those still wedded to quaint notions like corporate strategy and government debt sustainability, but you fight the crisis-battling prowess of the Fed and the US government at your peril. It seems that this year, few intend to bother trying.

We will no doubt continue saving for retirement into funds that get exposure to the melt-up that’s going on now and (as down follows up) we will get exposure to the melt-down.  But according to Katie, it won’t be quite now..

The muck is still sliding off Teflon-coated markets, pessimists appear to be giving up the fight and the melt-up is very much in play.

I spent much of the weekend at war with myself as I have a reasonable amount in DC pensions and ISAs and I want to exchange this money for an income that provides me with a degree of certainty. I could of course abandon the equity markets and buy an annuity but I want an income that goes up with inflation and when you look at the inflation linked annuity rates, you wonder whether the long term direction of equities isn’t a little higher than what can be guaranteed me from bonds (and the prudence of insurers – especially for their shareholders).

I want to be able to read about the markets at times like this and know that I can stay in equities and other growth areas of the market and have my pension paid through melt-ups and melt-downs. That is what I expect from a pension.

But for now, the cries of dismay we had last April are history. Unless that is for the people who cashed out last April.

Casting an eye across the outlooks from all the major investment banks and big asset managers, it is close to impossible to find a naysayer. US policy on trade and interference in central banking remains a clear and present danger to every portfolio, but the astonishing market resilience of 2025 makes it very difficult to justify whining from the sidelines.

The dark days of April, when US President Donald Trump’s whackadoodle global trade policy sent markets careering lower, are an increasingly distant memory.

“In April, if you had told people we would be at all-time highs and looking at economic growth of 2.4 per cent . . . and that we would be moving down the scale on trade tensions, people would tell you that’s the best-case scenario,”

said Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo, global co-head of multi-asset solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York.

I would be surprised if there wasn’t another April 2025 in 2026 and in truth I cannot see a solution coming from my pension providers (Nest and L&G) to protect my “pot” even though I will reach my normal retirement age (65) on my bigger pot in November. What if I took my pot in November 2026, would L&G offer me certainty?

The answer is of course that that’s my choice and I, like millions of savers have to set our sights on another 30 years (my estimate of my longevity) on our view of what will happen to our pot.

And yet, here we are, living in the best of all possible worlds, with stellar corporate earnings having done all the heavy lifting on asset prices in the US, the world’s dominant financial market. Big investors readily confess to being stunned. This sits very awkwardly alongside a widespread suspicion that stocks, especially tech stocks, are in a bubble and that the US economy is showing some hairline cracks.

There is no serious discussion of investments going on between trustees and savers. This is the basis of my quarrel with L&G who have been boasting about the care they are showing savers with “member forums”.  When I started in this business in the early 1980s, the view was that profits from the markets would be smoothed out and paid out to savers as a pension “with profits”. There was a sharing of the good times and protection against the bad times. Now that has gone, you now give all the profit to the insurer (annuity) or take all the risks yourself (drawdown).

One thing we now is that we can’t predict when the markets will go up and when go down even if we are the best and JP Morgan’s Karen Ward is pretty good. Here she is talking to Katie Martin

The strong performance of markets in 2025 has produced “bafflement”, said Ward. “How is it that we’ve had tariffs and geopolitics are bleak and the French government has failed twice and markets are at record highs? That’s the question we’re asked all the time.”

No one is certain and Katie Martin reckons that this means we complacently take whatever is thrown us. But we have a financial services industry that should be protecting people so that they get security in later days.  Katie Martin points out what we actually get.

Fundamentals be damned. In the age of easy-peasy index-tracking passive investment and reliable knee-jerk financial support to any shock, it is very much starting to feel like the only way is up. Markets track the volume of money pouring in to them, not just the nitty gritty of the assets underneath, which means negative shocks have to be truly enormous to knock them off course.

I guess one answer to the question “where do we stand on market melt-up” is to keep paying the premiums.  But I’d like to have a better answer from those who run my pensions, I would like some certainty that when the inevitable “melt down” does arrive, I have someone holding a safety blanket.

 

 

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Is MoneyHelper giving more harm than help?

Posted on January 5, 2026 by henry tapper

 

The article by Edward Lucas on his experience trying to sort out his affairs with two DC plans (Options and Scottish Widows) has focussed attention to Mr Lucas’ attempts to get his pots in the same place. I don’t know who “Outsider -looking- in” is but he sounds authoritative but the rules he’s referring t, rightly infuriate the consumer Lucas. Whether it is Scottish Widows or MoneyHelper , he can’t do what he wants to do with his money.

Pension Bee have been calling for some sense on transfers so that people have some control over their money and this is one of the reasons why. I guess that there will be people who will be saying “rules are rules” but there seems no sense in all this.

There is of course a sense that advice is always worth paying for but most of us want advice on complicated things, not how to bring two pots together. If pots can’t be brought together without the expense of an adviser then the aim of regulation to put the customer in control has failed. It seems to have failed and we may blame scamming but … read beyond John Mather’s comment which shows how idiotic disclaimers are. Advice is not required…

With the best will in the world, the regulations that were put in place to solve a problem have become the problem – I suspect irony from John Mather but this isn’t funny, there are millions of people who need to do the simple things that Edward Lucas can’t.

And finally an anonymous commentator who clearly knows a lot about working within MoneyHelper.

Statements about regulation doesn’t mean there is no problem.

His scheme may well have said

“It’s a legal requirement on all transfers that MoneyHelper agree it’s ok”.

I’ve heard that so many times from so many customers of so many different schemes I’m sure that many are saying that to customers. But I’m also sure that often the scheme has understood the rules and purpose but explained it badly and consequently customers often see the scheme as delaying a transfer.

Rules layered on rules, and state pension changes, make pensions confusing and get seen as a rip off since it can be so difficult to move/withdraw your own money.

Ironically extra protection potentially leads to an increase in scam activity

“Don’t worry – we can sort all of it for you – just sign here”

Also people will often invest in property as they see it as a sure thing, and miss out on the tax breaks that pensions enjoy.

MoneyHelper used to offer some specialised support for the self-employed who are often un-pensioned, but the relaunch has been delayed.

None of this speaks well of Moneyhelper. Is is really playing an important part in the way we manage our pension affairs?

My gut tells me that MoneyHelper has become more harm than help to the millions who are trying to make sense of their pensions.

It has the role of delivering the dashboard which is undoubtedly good and going to happen. But is it doing much else for pensions?

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