Tag Archives: Actuarial science

Making the most of the £20bn small employers spend on DB – Guest blog from Hilary Salt

A simple shift in communications could ensure the £20bn employers spend on DB each year isn’t wasted Over the last decade we’ve seen the long march of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes from the sunny beaches of open schemes run by … Continue reading

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Is increasing complexity making pension saving harder ? – guest blog by Ralph Frank.

The most conclusive finding of a recent survey by PwC into pensions taxation was not even related to the respondents’ views on the central question of the survey (namely, the most appealing tax scenario for their pension)! Sixty percent of … Continue reading

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Bringing down the cost of advice #FAMR

The Financial Advice Market Review asks whether Britain can bridge the advice gap for those people who “want to work hard, do the right thing and get on in life but do not have significant wealth”, strip out the political … Continue reading

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What employers can do to get their members better pensions

Yesterday I had a chance to talk with a large employer about what they can do to help improve the outcomes of their DC plans. Influencing employees to get the best out of their pension savings means getting them to … Continue reading

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“We all defer together?” – Guest Blog from Ralph Frank

The recently announced consultation on pensions tax relief has stirred up thought and debate on the issue of incentivising long-term saving.  There are theoretical, commercial and practical aspects to be addressed in this process of defining an approach to pensions … Continue reading

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The transfer mess gets worse…

It’s been some weeks since I wrote about transfers. To recap, I have been predicting a seizure in the transfer market , resulting from high demand, low-advisory capacity and pipes blocked with regulatory effluent. So it doesn’t come as a … Continue reading

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Pension’s day of reckoning draws nigh!

April 6th 2016 should be a date with a red circle round it on any pension’s office calendar. It’s the day when contracting-out officially comes to an end- “cessates” – is no more. It is also the date when the … Continue reading

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A new pension deal

A NEW PENSIONS DEAL – NOT A NEW KIND OF ISA There is only one thing that distinguishes a pension plan from an ISA plan and that is liquidity. By “liquidity”, I mean the ease with which the plan holder can … Continue reading

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Supply-side woes , buy-side goes; the disappearing pension billions

It’s not hard to spend a billion, not if you’re a nation that knows how to spend but finds it hard to save. As Osborne found, a generation of planning can be unwound in a minute. Were the tax rules … Continue reading

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Let’s not get caught with our trousers down (again).

The reason we have NEST and its £400m debt to the tax-payer is that the private sector refused to commit to supporting auto-enrolment ten years ago. If the organisations like Legal & General, Standard Life and Aviva , could have … Continue reading

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