Tag Archives: Employment

“A question of trust”- accountants and auto-enrolment pensions.

I’m not going to quote Einstein’s definition of insanity as that would be madness. To understand how tactical short-cuts spiral into destruction look at what PPI has done to the share price of our high-street banks This blog is for accountants who … Continue reading

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Auto-Enrolment needs more Training and less Selling

The standards adopted by those administering auto-enrolment have been high. Compliance to some complex problems that payroll, HR and pension providers have faced has been impressive. Sure there have been failures but countries (such as Ireland) reviewing the progress of … Continue reading

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Why the FCA should take a leaf out of tPR’s book.

  The Pensions Regulator have been re-born over the last five years and become focussed on helping advisers, trustees and employees solve pension problems. They have started treating us as  customers and not potential criminals. Sadly, this attitudinal shift doesn’t seem … Continue reading

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“Tax relief – what are the numbers?” Guest blog from Ralph Frank

The Government has repeatedly expressed its concern, both in the 2015 Budget (paragraph 1.232) and in the recently announced consultation on pensions tax relief, at the level of income tax forgone through the provision of pension tax relief.  This concern … Continue reading

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“Another girl- another Planet” – the wonderful world of NEST

Helen Dean, the new CEO of NEST has set out her stall in the pages of Professional Pensions. Much of what she says is intelligent and helpful Helping .. small and micro employers means seeing AE through their eyes. Instead of … Continue reading

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Can IFAs create their own profession?

James Walker  has published BWD’s assessment of the prospects for firms offering financial advice as their core product. He paints a picture of rising regulatory costs and sluggish growth prospects preventing IFA practices from employing the young blood to refresh it. Last … Continue reading

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Corporate Myopia

“Myopia” medically means short-sighted, in business a company is myopic if it cannot see the bigger picture. Businesses get short-sighted easily enough, typically when they do not need to try very hard and can concentrate on maximising return on easy wins. … Continue reading

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Towers Watson’s mansion on the hill.

It’s good to see Pension Minister Ros Altmann paying some attention to the pension small schemes sign up to as part of staging auto-enrolment. Corporate Adviser run the article, the link’s here. Of course Ros is thinking about the 1,200,000 … Continue reading

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“Trust me , I’m a scorpion”

I was born at 11.02am on 11th November 1961, according to my star chart ,the sun, the moon, all the houses and for all I know Planet Pluto are in Scorpio, which makes me a little worried. This is no … Continue reading

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Beware “black-box” auto-enrolment “solutions”.

Katie Morley of the de Daily Telegraph has written an important article claiming that the occupational schemes set up to relieve the needy of their pension savings before retirement are now turning their sights on auto-enrolment. This may or may not … Continue reading

Posted in First Actuarial, pensions, Pensions Regulator, Popcorn Pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments