Tag Archives: National Employment Savings Trust

How Government can ensure capacity for good pensions advice and provision

There are concerns over whether the UK has enough spare power capacity over the coming years. So to ensure the lights stay on the government is offering electricity producers a “capacity payment”, which is a payment simply for having power … Continue reading

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Clarity needed on NEST’s finances

  The Pension Regulator has announced it intends to introduce a Directory of workplace pensions. The criteria for inclusion will be that the workplace pension must meet the Quality Standards being introduced from 2015 and that the workplace will be universally … Continue reading

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What is the future of UK pensions?

  On Wednesday (10th December)  I will be speaking at a Prospect conference which asks “what is the future of Pensions” in the UK. It is great to see journalists from outside the pension industry picking up on the issues … Continue reading

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Why employers pay no attention to the pension

Darren Say has written a very contentious article that you can read here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141203141647-42828632-ae-pensions-insanity Darren opens by repeating three statements on pensions …employers don’t want world class pensions, they just want the problem to comply with AE legislation to be taken off … Continue reading

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AE – make a virtue of necessity

  It pains me to hear advisers talk of auto-enrolment as a “burden”. Helping to provide a retirement fund from which your staff can draw a pension seems to me a good thing for employers to do. If the phrase … Continue reading

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“Investing for the long-term” – guest blog from Ralph Frank

The Financial Services Consumer Panel (“FSCP”) recently published a number of suggested options for reform of the governance, disclosure and pricing of investment products.  These options were based on the findings of two studies, one by Rajiv Jaitly and the … Continue reading

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People seeking safety at any price?

  I was annoyed to listen to one of the Bank of England’s Chief Economists Andy Haldane tell the BBC’s Robert Peston that people were seeking safety at any price. Passing the buck on to the “cautious consumer” may play … Continue reading

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A miserable device; – guest blog from Ralph Frank

Members who cease paying into defined contribution pension arrangements often pay higher management charges than their colleagues who continue to add to their savings. This two-tier charging approach is euphemistically referred to as the ‘Active Member Discount’ (“AMD”). I guess … Continue reading

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Disclosing costs – we are almost there!

The Financial Services Consumer Panel have issued a damning condemnation on the £5tr British Funds Industry for failing to tell people what they are paying for and how much they are paying when they invest their money in British Funds. … Continue reading

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The fine line between “patronising” and “paternal”.

Last week Tom Mcphail (Hargreaves Lansdown) had a go at Teresa Fritz (financial Services Consumer Council and MAS) about the need for advice. You’d expect the two to clash, FSCS and MAS are not much loved by advisers who see it as an incompetent … Continue reading

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