In my last three blog posts I explained how the gold-standard of defined benefit pensions had turned from a useful recruiting tool into an expensive liability for private sector schemes by the start of the millennium. The culmination of these changes was a slew of closures of private sector final salary schemes. This change was…
The pension minister’s announcement that restrictions on the National Employment Savings Trust will be abolished in 2017 is a significant step towards the end of the individual company pension scheme. The European Commission’s decision to approve the lifting of the annual contribution cap of £4,500 and the removal of the ban on bulk transfers makes…
Today I received a press release which, at first glance, looked like one any self-respecting financial journalist should ignore. An active manager says its response to the Local Government Pension Scheme consultation was to warn against local authorities shifting into passive investments. Well, you wouldn’t expect a turkey to vote for Christmas would you? It…
I’ll admit it: I have strong opinions about pensions and investment. I find it particularly vexing when anyone uses the word ‘saving’ while talking about pensions. That’s why the first blog I wrote addresses this very issue. Research released by Nest Corporation today reinforces why it is so important the pensions industry does its utmost…
In the somewhat dry and technical world of pensions it is a good week when life is enlivened by two parties expressing equally strong yet opposing views on a particular topic. The most entertaining aspect of the government’s unveiling of its Pensions Bill last week was face-off between two of the UK’s biggest investment consultancy firms…
Last week KPMG issued a report on the asset management industry declaring the number of global players would halve by 2030. Forecasting the size of an industry to decrease by 50% is certainly a headline-grabbing prediction but that was not the only interesting insight contained in the 80-page report. This sentence in particular grabbed my…
It’s inevitable coalition government policy will be a Frankenstein monster – ideas from different parties are stitched together to form a whole. And then politicians cross their fingers and hope it will be cohesive enough to lumber through to the next election without collapsing into a pile of disparate body parts. Up until recently, it…
A collective defined contribution scheme, which pools together assets from multiple companies, has much to recommend it. It’s no longer effective for many companies to set up their own DC schemes – it requires too great a commitment from the executive team. In addition to saving management time, collective schemes can do things than it’s much…
Even though more than two months have passed since Budget, the pensions industry is still coming to terms with the long-term implications of dropping the requirement for pensioners to buy an annuity on retirement. The most important concern is to ensure members buy the right product at retirement to match their fiscal needs. To that…
After months of speculation, the announcement by the government at the end of March that it will impose a 0.75% charge cap on all defined contribution schemes used for auto-enrolment pension schemes at least drew a line in the sand for the pensions industry. While a resolution to the matter is to be welcomed as…