News – Page 104
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Debi O'Donovan: Auto-enrolment has put pensions centre stage
And the word on the street (or at least at the National Association of Pensions Funds’ annual conference last month) is that although we know that such low savings rates (starting at an initial 1% contribution each for employee and employer) will not necessarily give people the retirement they need, ...
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Debbie Lovewell: Auto-enrolment spurs wider financial focus
Barely a day goes by when stories of rising prices and households struggling to make ends meet do not hit the headlines.Just last month, the Home truths study by the National Housing Federation found that the number of working households that are now reliant on housing benefit to pay their ...
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Employers use auto-enrolment to trigger pension reviews
The top triggers for employers to review pension plans are the cost of auto-enrolment and ensuring they get value for money, said Logan Anderson, head of customer relations at The Pensions Trust.“First of all, it is a budgetary review, but also asking, are we getting value for money for what ...
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Pensioner pay increases by 50%
Average gross incomes for pensioners have increased by an estimated 50% in real terms over the last 16 years, according to research by the Office for National Statistics.The Pension trends 2012 report found that occupational pensions were a “significant” source of income for pensions. The other source of income is ...
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John Lewis says auto-enrolment is ‘wrong for us’
NAPF: John Lewis Partnership’s head of pensions, Dinesh Visavadia, has slammed the inflexibility of auto-enrolment legislation because of its disconnect with the organisation’s business strategy. Speaking at the National Association of Pension Funds’ (NAPF) annual conference in Liverpool on 19 October, he said: “It is the wrong kind of legislation ...
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Kingfisher to bring forward staging dates
NAPF: Kingfisher will auto-enrol its nearly 40,000 employees across six organisations into a money purchase pension scheme on 1 April 2013.Based on the number of employees in each part of its business, parent company Kingfisher would have been enrolling staff between January 2013 and July 2014. Its businesses include B&Q, ...
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Disclosure of pension charges essential
Full disclosure of pension charges is essential if scheme members are to gain value for money and subsequently refrain from opting out post-auto-enrolment, according to Gregg McClymont, shadow pensions minister.Although annual management charges (AMCs) are published, this is insufficient, he added. “AMCs may comprise less than a third of total ...
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Morrisons helps staff save dough
Morrisons launched a campaign to help its employees understand why they need to save for the future and how to go about it ahead of its auto-enrolment staging date.Its Save Your Dough campaign is aimed at Morrisons 135,000 employees spread across four divisions as part of the organisation’s auto-enrolment strategy. ...
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DB pensions need alternative de-risking strategies
It will be around 2040 before UK private sector defined benefit (DB) pension schemes can fully de-risk unless they consider alternative strategies, according to research by Towers Watson.The research is based on the projected availability of low-risk assets, with the supply of index-linked gilts (ILGs) considered the most important constraint ...
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Royal Opera House to close DB pension
The Royal Opera House is to close its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme to future accrual in the run-up to its auto-enrolment staging date of September 2013.A consultation with the scheme’s 200 members about the closure will be open until 7 December 2012. The Royal Opera House then intends to ...
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Small firms unprepared for auto-enrolment
Only 28% of smaller firms have budgeted for the cost of auto-enrolment, according to new research from the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA).A million challenges ahead, the first report from the ACA’s 2012 Smaller firms’ pensions survey, found the majority of respondents with 250 or fewer employees were unprepared for ...
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TPR publishes evidence on DB pension funding regime
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published evidence of how some of the flexibilities in the defined benefit (DB) pension-funding regime have been used by pension schemes and employers.In producing its DB scheme funding statement Pension scheme funding in the current economic environment earlier in 2012, TPR considered how best to ...
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Smith & Williamson launches auto-enrolment tool
Smith and Williamson has launched an online auto-enrolment tool, which uses basic information about an employer’s pension scheme.It enables the accountancy and investment management firm to assess what an employer needs to do, and by when, in order to comply with the new legislation.Paul Maher, head of financial services at ...
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HEG to develop auto-enrolment and RTI support
EXCLUSIVE: The Hotel Employers Group (HEG) is to develop a support pack for its employer members to help them deal with pensions auto-enrolment and the real-time information (RTI) programme for payroll.The group, which represents hotel industry brands such as Holiday Inn Express and Best Western, are working with professional services ...
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BA brings in flexible retirement
EXCLUSIVE: British Airways (BA) has introduced flexible retirement, started to communicate auto-enrolment and streamlined its online pensions portal during its annual pensions month.Pensions month, which was introduced in September 2011, also offered members of its closed defined benefit (DB) pension scheme, the opportunity to change their accrual rates. Members of ...
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O2 to close DB scheme before auto-enrolment
O2 has proposed to close its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme to future accrual due to the impending cost of auto-enrolment and the poor economic environment.The scheme, which was closed to new members in 2001, is a legacy scheme that was carried over to Telefonica, O2’s parent company, with BT ...
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Employees want to know more about auto-enrolment
Three-fifths (59%) of respondents who do not currently belong to a pension scheme are still not aware of auto-enrolment, but 55% are keen to find out more about it, according to research by Standard Life.The research, which was conducted with YouGov, surveyed 2,125 UK adults, of which 1,098 confirmed they ...
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FTSE 350 pension deficits increase
Assets held in the FTSE 350 defined benefit (DB) pension schemes have increased to £501 billion, while liabilities have increased to £574 billion, according to research by Mercer.The research found that this is up from 2002, when assets stood at £282 billion and liabilities stood at £357 billion.The data, which ...
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SMEs unaware of auto-enrolment and RDR
Two-thirds (66%) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not heard of the retail distribution review (RDR) and 41% have not heard of auto-enrolment, according to research by RSM Tenon.The RSM Tenon Business barometer, a quarterly survey carried out by YouGov among senior management in SMEs, also found that only ...
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Auto-enrolment comes into effect
Auto-enrolment legislation officially comes into effect today.From 1 October, every employer in the UK has a legal duty to automatically enrol eligible employees into a qualifying workplace pension scheme and make contributions towards it.The duties will be staged in over six years, starting with the largest employers. Organisations such as ...