Pitmans Trustees Limited (PTL) has launched a suite of products to help employers establish a governance framework for their defined contribution (DC) pension schemes.
The products, called ‘Lifetime: DC governance focused on members’, is a package of tools developed specifically for DC pensions, including trusteeship, group personal pension (GPP) governance and investment governance.
Richard Butcher (pictured), managing director of PTL, said: “We have been saying for some time now that DC is the future in pension provision.
“It is, also, now. Auto-enrolment is a year old and hundreds of thousands of workers have been enrolled into DC schemes during that year. At the same time, defined benefit (DB) pension schemes’ closures continue, with most employers replacing it with a DC scheme.
“We estimate that the total DC population could be 20 million workers by 2018. In other words, a lot of people are going to be relying heavily on DC for their pension income.
“It is, therefore, hugely important to members, employers, the wider economy and society at large, that DC works as best it can. It has to be really efficient, it has to be more reliable and it has to be, most importantly, more member-focused.
“Unfortunately, many trustees and governors still see DC as some kind of subset of DB and relevant tools and strategies have not been sufficiently developed. DC governance requires a different focus and mindset alongside a completely different set of governance tools. It has to be more granular as it is much more time sensitive and risk intolerant.”