Tag Archives: ft

“We want freedom and choice and we want simplification too”.

Posted on February 23, 2019 by

Pensions. Tax. Benefits. Each over-complex. When combined: lethal. We shouldn’t blame pension freedoms for the mistakes caused by governments’ habit of making everything too complicated. We want freedom and choice and we want simplification too. — Stuart Fowler (@fowlerdrew) February … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Not all recycling’s in the public interest!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by

A lot of people are confused about taking money out of their pensions and the pensions industry isn’t being very helpful in encouraging people to have their money back (funny that!). So when I read a headline in the Financial … Continue reading →

Posted in Debt, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Will “DC deficits” become a thing of the past?

Posted on October 11, 2018 by

News of HMRC’s “change of position” with regards the “net-pay- anomaly” is welcome, and long overdue. It came in the form of a letter sent in response to a request from respected journalist Jo Cumbo of the FT. Govt to … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, annuity, auto-enrolment, pension playpen, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Our pen-tech free pension picnic!

Posted on September 17, 2018 by

    “It is one thing for a company to know my vacation shopping patterns or what media I like; it is another for them to access my entire financial history, including my investments” So Rana Foroohar wraps up an … Continue reading →

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Frank Field – a Labour warrior.

Posted on August 31, 2018 by

Frank Field Quits Labour Party https://t.co/lr5COhPfCq pic.twitter.com/yVXTAild4f — Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) August 30, 2018 Yesterday I reported that Chris Sier and Andy Agethangelou were appearing in front of Frank Field’s Work and Pensions Select Committee. Today I’m writing about Frank … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The self-employed are engaged- they just don’t know what to do.

Posted on July 14, 2018 by

If you have an FT subscription, follow this link –  you will be able to read Jo Cumbo’s beautifully written opinion piece “Self-employed, the pension world’s great unsolved dilemma”. If you are saving so hard for your pension that you … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Averting a pensions crisis?

Posted on June 12, 2018 by

I’m on a panel of speakers at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland tonight. The title of our session is “averting a pensions crisis” and were it not the title of the worst album of the seventies, I’d be … Continue reading →

Posted in actuaries, advice gap, pensions | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Is fund management over-rated?

Posted on June 10, 2018 by

We’ve got used to thinking of fund managers as the kings of the lot. They are at the top of food chain in terms of pay and the respect offered them by the rest of the financial community. So the … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, pensions | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Manufacturing credit defaults? Have we learned nothing from the crash?

Posted on June 9, 2018 by

If you are an FT subscriber , you can read the story of “the mystery trader who roiled Wall-Street“. When I read the headline , I thought that we’d had a Grauniad-style typo, but “roil” exists, to describe making (a … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

If we can’t measure CETV take up, how can we manage it?

Posted on May 21, 2018 by

There’s a well known phrase “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. The Government can’t measure the extent of DB transfers and I conclude that they can’t govern the transfer process until they do.     Here’s the … Continue reading →

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