Pensions provider Axa is offering retired members of its final salary pension scheme the chance to take part in a pension increase exchange.
Pensioners that participate will agree to take a higher pension now in return for lower increases in the future. Axa has confirmed that affected members will have free access from an independent financial advisor (IFA) staffed helpline to support their decision-making.
A statement from Axa said: “This offer is entirely optional and provides pensioners more choice around how they manage their retirement income.”
Last week, pensions minister Steve Webb raised concerns over pension increase exchanges. He said: “People need to be careful about accepting incentives to give up valuable long-term inflation protection.
"We want to make sure people do not miss out on retirement cash and are urgently looking at what we can do to protect people’s incomes at retirement.”
Axa’s offer of pension increase exchange exercises comes shortly after Alliance Boots was criticised for asking its workers to forgo inflation-linked increases to their pension scheme payouts.
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