Opinion – Page 5
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OpinionDavid Gallagher and Eleanor Duhs: Brexit and pensions
Last December's election seemingly showed a clear mandate to 'get Brexit done'. As the date draws near, those who have responsibility over pensions within their organisations will need to be aware that Brexit will have a number of effects.Product regulation for sales in the UK/EUIf an organisation has a traditional ...
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OpinionMichelle Cracknell: Is pensions consolidation always the right choice?
Employers have to provide a workplace pension and, with the average person having 11 jobs in their lifetime, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), this could lead to millions of dormant or lost pension pots. Keeping track of multiple pensions is hard and will continue to be ...
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OpinionChintan Gandhi: Employers can help inform staff about pensions consolidation
The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) welcomes the continued drive towards consolidating smaller occupational defined contribution (DC) schemes and members' pension pots. At a scheme level, it is widely recognised that better member outcomes can often be achieved in larger schemes with stronger governance, well-designed and diversified investment strategies, and ...
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OpinionJames Parker: What are the implications of Zurich's longevity swap transaction?
On 17 December, insurance organisation Zurich announced that it had entered into an 'enhanced pass through' longevity swap transaction, covering around £800 million of pensioner liabilities for a FTSE 100-sponsored pension scheme. Hymans Robertson and CMS acted as lead advisers to the pension scheme.The transaction was described as 'unique' by ...
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OpinionAnna Rogers: Bauer judgment means more grief for the Pension Protection Fund
Last month, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled in Bauer that the current 50% minimum level of protection is too low if it means that the pension member is living below the 'at risk of poverty' measure in the member state concerned.The court did not agree with the Advocate-General ...
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OpinionTim Pike: Are we wedded to a gender pensions gap?
Women approaching retirement have typically accrued £51,000 in pension wealth, compared to £157,000 for men; this is a gender pensions gap of more than £100,000, according to a report published by the Pensions Policy Institute and Now: Pensions, in July 2019, Understanding the gender pensions gap.This is generally a result ...
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OpinionLucy Bennett: 2020 will see new regulatory requirements for pension scheme trustees
By 1 October 2019, trustees of occupational pension schemes, with a few specific exceptions, had to update their scheme’s statement of investment principles (Sip) to cover, among other things, the trustees’ policies on environmental and other sustainable investment issues.Further changes are coming in 2020. If an employer sponsors a scheme ...
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OpinionTim Middleton: Do pensions still have a role in attracting talented employees?
Decades ago, a pension scheme would have played a vital role in helping employers recruit and retain talented individuals.Today, however, things are significantly different. For one, employers are far less likelyto want to recruit employees who will stay with them to retirement. Moreover, as it is now a statutory requirement ...
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OpinionJeremy Harris: Universities must review their pension strategies
With rampant news about the eight day industrial action by staff at 60 universities across the UK this week, it is hard to make sense of the history and reasoning behind the current strike, and, more importantly, why now is the time for universities to review their pension strategy.Back in ...
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OpinionTony Britton: Important questions when choosing a master trust
Since the introduction of master trust authorisation (MTA) earlier this year, every workplace master trust must be formally approved by The Pensions Regulator (TPR). It is a robust process that sets high standards and requires master trusts to keep them there.However, it does not mean that all approved master trusts ...
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OpinionAnne-Marie Winton: Higher fines and tougher penalties following the Pensions Bill
Now that the general election campaign is upon us, October's Queen’s Speech is all but forgotten, but, should the Conservatives win a majority, one piece of draft legislation with a far-reaching impact seems set to become law early in 2020: the Pension Schemes Bill.The principal objectives of this bill are ...
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OpinionPhilomena Price: Employment law changes to watch out for from April 2020
April 2020 sees some key changes coming into force that employers need to be aware of. As with any employment law matter, it is beneficial if employers start thinking about how these changes may affect their businesses now, and plan accordingly, rather than waiting.First, all workers, including employees starting work ...
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OpinionPhil Spary: Testing times for master trust pension schemes
It is no surprise that considerable emphasis on governance standards and regulatory expectations have continued to be a focus in the minds of those responsible for running master trust pension schemes. Having been taken through a rigorous authorisation process, trustees and their advisers will have considered the suitability of their ...
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OpinionHelen Ball: What does the future hold for defined contribution pension schemes?
Until the publication of the recent Pension Schemes Bill, confirmed during the Queen's Speech in October 2019, defined contribution (DC) scheme trustees and providers had been suffering from planning blight, namely the reduction of activity due to expected future development. However, we now have some important proposals affecting DC pensions ...
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OpinionMel Duffield: Initiatives to engage younger employees with pensions
For an employee starting out in their 20s, facing higher costs of living, saddled with student debt, and with the prospect of retirement only a distant goal on the horizon, apathy about pension saving, and even opting out of the auto-enrolment process altogether, is not unexpected.However, there are strong indications ...
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OpinionLarisa Gordan: Pensions buy-ins are an effective way to de-risk part of members' liabilities
A buy-in policy is one way of transferring risk from a pension scheme to an annuity provider, normally an insurance firm. The trustees pay a premium to the insurer and in return receive a regular income which essentially matches the agreed benefits for each member of the scheme.This transaction is ...
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OpinionDr Aideen Young: Employers are well-placed to help staff prepare for later life
Auto-enrolment has led to huge gains in pension participation: according to May 2018 figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), around 73% of UK employees had an active workplace pension in 2017, up from less than 47% in 2012.While this is good news, pension contributions have remained at the ...
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OpinionMartin Parish: Money under the mattress - why support financial wellbeing
Although stashing money under the mattress is, we hope, a thing of the past, the legacy of bad money management continues. The Money Advice Service (MAS) estimates that four in 10 people in the UK have poor financial capability, meaning they cannot manage their money day-to-day, nor handle periods of ...
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OpinionTony Pugh: Global challenges and solutions for DC pensions and financial wellbeing
A global financial wellbeing programme that takes into account localised pensions legislation, different taxation regimes and myriad different savings products might sound more like solving a Rubik’s Cube than building a benefits strategy.However, the DC pension and financial wellbeing global employee survey, published by Aon in June 2019, shows that, ...
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OpinionFerdy Lovett: Key issues for employers when transferring to a DC master trust
For some time now, the governance spotlight has been focusing on defined contribution (DC) pension benefits. Some employers find it expensive and time-consuming to meet the regulatory expectations placed on their occupational DC scheme or DC section of a hybrid scheme. As a consequence, there has been a sharp increase ...