Tag Archives: SIPP

The rise and fall of SIPPs

Posted on February 23, 2019 by

  It’s easy enough for me to throw stones at SIPPs, I don’t invest in them, I don’t advise on them and I don’t run one. In the early days of SIPPs , two good friends, John Moret and John … Continue reading →

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

FCA to tame the drawdown bucking bronco!

Posted on January 29, 2019 by

  Yesterday was a good news day for people concerned about retirement income. The FCA made two meaningful statements on what it intends to do to help ordinary people trying to manage their in retirement finances. The first was the … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, corporate governance, FCA, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Are SIPPs just too complicated?

Posted on August 23, 2018 by

  News yesterday  that complaints about SIPPs (Self Invested Personal Pensions) are now upheld by the pension ombudsman more than any other financial product. The number of new complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service concerning Sipps has nearly doubled in … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The problem with platforms (is that everyone loves them).

Posted on August 14, 2018 by

Platforms are a relatively new but significant and growing distribution channel. The platform service provider market has doubled since 2013 from £250bn to £500bnassets under administration (AUA). This growth in AUA has been driven by rising markets and increasing levels … Continue reading →

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

Can “for profit” prosper? Yes – but we need dashboards that profit us all.

Posted on July 21, 2018 by

There is a strong tradition in this country of delivering services through “not for profit” organisations. Such organisations have been self-sustainable because of the endowments or trust funds that support their management. The most obvious manifestation of the not for … Continue reading →

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

Hargreaves Lansdown’s IGC as pretty and effective as a chocolate teapot!

Posted on April 28, 2018 by

    In 2015, David Grimes and the Hargreaves Lansdown IGC, delivered what remains the worst IGC report I have ever reviewed. Things improved considerably in 2016 but the IGC has not kicked on and I find the 2017 report … Continue reading →

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SJP policyholders deserve an IGC. They have a great GAA – but that’s not enough!

Posted on April 28, 2018 by

St James Place is one of Britain’s largest financial institutions, it is a FTSE 100 company with 2017 revenues of over £9bn. It is therefore surprising that its exposure to workplace pensions is so limited that it does not need … Continue reading →

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There is only so much pension risk, an ordinary person can take.

Posted on March 7, 2018 by

This diagram shows us the points where we can do well in our “journey” as DC investors. It’s a useful starting point in working out how we create value for money for ourselves. This article shows that how much we … Continue reading →

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

Time for a DC upgrade?

Posted on February 16, 2018 by

I was wading through yet another long and technical explanation of CDC  when I got my Eureka moment! I don’t want a CDC plan, I want a DC upgrade! I’m not dissing legal eagle Sandeep Maudgil (who’s soon to appear … Continue reading →

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

Self-employment; opt-out or cop-out?

Posted on February 10, 2018 by

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js These are numbers produced by our Office of National Statistics. Detailed notes are at the bottom of this article. We can safely assume that (without Government intervention) the trends have continued and that the 2017 and 2018 numbers will … Continue reading →

Posted in auto-enrolment, pensions | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments