Aegon and Aviva win gold in FTRC’s AE and workplace pension survey
Aegon and Aviva have picked up nine gold medals between them in FTRC’s 2018 annual product and operational ratings for workplace pensions and auto-enrolment (AE). The financial research consultant...
View ArticleJason Green: What’s next for workplace pensions?
To all intents and purposes, auto enrolment has now finished, as the majority of employees have now been staged. This does not mean the end of workplace pensions however, as 2019 should prove a very...
View ArticlePensions tax relief faces cut as government seeks funding for NHS
Chancellor Philip Hammond is set to announce cuts to pensions tax relief in his Budget later this month in order to raise revenue to pay for NHS funding commitments, according to reports. Hammond is...
View ArticleSecond British Steel firm regains pension transfer permissions
Mansion Park, a firm associated with the British Steel pension scheme saga, has become the second adviser firm involved in the episode to regain its pension transfer permissions after almost a year of...
View ArticleCarey Pensions finds buyer despite looming judgement
STM Group has bought Carey Administration Holdings, which owns 70% of embattled SIPP provider Carey Pensions, for £400,000. A market update this morning (9 October) confirmed STM Group had entered...
View ArticleCarey Pensions to face fresh legal challenge as judgement looms
Self-invested personal pension (SIPP) provider Carey Pensions has become the subject of a fresh legal challenge, facing a claim it failed to undertake the required due diligence when accepting SIPP...
View ArticleBerkeley Burke needed ‘crystal ball’ to know 2011 SIPP obligations
Lawyers representing embattled SIPP provider Berkeley Burke argued the firm would have needed to “peer into a crystal ball” to understand the level of due diligence the Ombudsman would come to require...
View ArticleFCA accused of ‘not understanding own rules’ during hearing
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been accused of “not understanding its own rules” by Berkeley Burke lawyers, after it withdrew a key argument having discovered it might not be applicable in...
View ArticlePLSA urges Hammond to address five pensions priorities in Budget
The government needs to boost pension schemes’ access to illiquid investments, remedy the net-pay tax relief anomaly, and focus on securing a “successful Brexit” for pensions in its upcoming Budget,...
View ArticleBerkeley Burke v FOS decision due ‘in next few weeks’
The concluding judgement in the ongoing Berkeley Burke versus the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) case is set to be given in the “next few weeks”, the hearing’s judge said on Friday morning....
View ArticleTPR and PLSA reveal AE contribution hike’s minimal impact on opt-outs
The increase in minimum auto-enrolment (AE) contributions has had little impact on opt-out rates – with cessations after April increasing by less than two percentage points, data from The Pensions...
View ArticleAegon promotes Kate Smith to head of master trust
Kate Smith has been named head of master trust at Aegon following the acquisition of BlackRock’s defined contribution (DC) businesses. Smith, who was head of pensions, is now responsible for the...
View ArticleGuy Opperman: Government in ‘daily contact’ with industry on dashboard
The government is “in daily contact” with industry figures over the pensions dashboard as it prepares for the roll-out and its feasibility report, Guy Opperman (pictured) has said. The pensions and...
View ArticlePension freedoms could rake in £19.2bn of tax over next decade
Pension freedoms could generate as much as £1.9bn a year in tax revenue for the next 10 years, according to research by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI). In a briefing note published 15 October, the...
View ArticleState pension set to rise 2.6% as inflation falls below expectations
With inflation coming in below expectations in September, the state pension is set to rise 2.6% from April next year – slightly below the 3% increase seen in both 2017 and 2018. The Office for...
View Article‘Armageddon’ in SIPP market if cases go against providers – Martin Tilley
There will be “Armageddon” in the SIPP market if two court judgements due imminently go against the providers, Dentons Pensions director of technical Martin Tilley warned delegates at RP’s sister...
View ArticleDavid Low: Use pensions to get savers investing into small UK businesses
Forty years ago, when self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) first came to market, the intention was to offer far more pension flexibility as well as to create a vehicle to encourage entrepreneurs to...
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Pensions minister launches simpler annual statement
Pensions and financial inclusion minister Guy Opperman has launched a simplified two-page annual statement in a bid to provide a best practice template for the industry. The simpler annual statement...
View ArticleUK’s C+ pension system must undo freedoms and speed up state pension age...
The UK must do more to address its ageing demographics, said Mercer, as its global pension index shows the country static in its rankings. Ranked 15th of 33, the same level as last year, the UK scored...
View ArticleTroubled firm ordered to pay out again for Harlequin-related advice
A Wales-based financial advice firm has been instructed to compensate a former client after it allowed them to open a SIPP that was used to invest into unregulated scheme Harlequin Property. The...
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