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National Insurance reform ‘could solve’ self-employed pension problem
Auto-enrolment has altered the pensions landscape profoundly and there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people saving into a workplace scheme. In March, The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR)...
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Inquiry: Pension freedom’s first year in focus
Pension freedom, which came into force in April 2016, heralded massive changes for retirement planning giving defined contribution savers unfettered access to their pots, subject to taxation, from the...
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Cash or in-specie: What’s your pension transfer preference?
Evidence suggest that most pension transfers are carried out in cash but why is this? Is cash easier? Are the mechanics too complicated to explain to a client or is it that the timescales for in-specie...
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Pension freedom withdrawal ‘frenzy’ calms
Pension freedom withdrawals have tailed off in the last two quarters with a total of £1.6bn being extracted compared to £2.7bn in the previous two quarters, data from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)...
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On a mission: Protecting clients from the lifetime allowance cut
Daniel Craig is the seventh James Bond to protect the world from the bad guys. In a rather more subdued opening scene than the typical Bond blockbuster we now have our seventh form of protection to...
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‘Paraplanners are the future’: Peter Bradshaw on the future of advice
Peter Bradshaw is the national accounts director at Selectapension, an online tech-based service that helps people manage their pensions via their adviser. Services include transfer of defined benefit...
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Silver service: What role can technology play in advising the ‘older old?’
We all know that people are living longer. One-third of babies born in 2013 will live until they are 100, according to the Office for National Statistics and in the next five years, the number of...
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BlackRock sells DC platform to Aegon
Aegon is to acquire BlackRock’s UK defined contribution (DC) platform and administration business, adding 350,000 clients with £12bn of assets to its books. The £30bn combined workplace business will...
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Pension dashboard held back by ‘political will’ not technology
A Dutch pensions expert has weighed in on the pension dashboard debate saying lack of progress is down to ‘political will’ to push the project through. Rik Douwes, managing director of Dutch pension...
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Women twice as likely as men to be unaware of pension value – Fidelity
Some 25% of women do not know the value of their pension pot or their retirement income versus 15% of men, despite an average annual income of almost £5,000 lower than their male counterparts,...
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Pension freedom: A mixed picture for retirement savers
Within one week of pension freedom coming into force on 6 April last year, the FTSE 100 broke through the 7,000 mark. Those aged 55 and over, now at liberty to access their defined contribution (DC)...
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‘Value for money’ for all not always possible for DC members, says PPI
Failure to find an agreed definition of ‘value for money’ means trustees and providers are unable to provide schemes in the best interests of all DC members, according to the Pensions Policy Institute...
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TPR hands out more auto-enrolment penalty notices
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is issuing an increasing number of escalating penalty notices (EPN) to get companies to comply with their auto-enrolment duties. This is despite the watchdog’s Automatic...
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Axa to sell pensions arm; Standard Life acquires Elevate platform
Axa UK is in talks to sell its pensions business Axa Wealth and has offloaded its platform to Standard Life. Standard Life bought Elevate from AXA UK through its subsidiary Standard Life Savings...
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Tideway aims final salary transfer service at advisers
Tideway Investment Partners has launched a final salary transfer service for advisers to help them deal with increased demand for defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) switches. Demand for...
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Lifetime ISA an ‘attack on pensions’, AMPS warns
The government’s new Lifetime ISA (LISA) is a direct attack on the UK pensions industry, according to members of the Association of Member-Directed Pension Schemes (AMPS). LISA, announced in Chancellor...
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Talking pensions: Why clearer language on its own isn’t enough
Pensions can be a tricky subject for people to grasp. The fiendishly complex rules coupled with hard-to-pronounce and even-harder-to-understand technical terms can turn off even the most financially...
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RP Forum & Awards 2016: Hear from pensions minister Ros Altmann
There is still time to register for the Retirement Planner Forum & Awards taking place on 14 June in central London. Advisers who attend the half-day event will hear from pensions minister Ros...
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Govt launches website to help trace £400m in unclaimed pensions
A pension tracing website designed to help savers track down lost retirement pots has been launched by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). About £400m of unclaimed pension savings is waiting to...
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Fidelity’s Richard Parkin: The big drawdown conundrum
One year on from the government’s pension freedom reforms, how has the industry fared? Fidelity International head of pensions Richard Parkin talks to Professional Adviser senior correspondent Carmen...
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