All Pensions articles – Page 159
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Article
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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Opinion
Jill Duggan: Don't leave it too late to plan for auto-enrolment
The press coverage is hotting up and we are seeing adverts on TV and in newspapers. But do employees really know what it is yet and are employers ready?Employers must plan ahead and have a strategy because they will have to make decisions around a complex subject.At Trader Media Group, ...
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Opinion
Mick McAteer: Auto-enrolment will aid inclusion
At the Financial Inclusion Centre, our work covers outright financial exclusion and financial under provision, where people are not making enough provision for their core financial needs.The number of UK households that do not have a pension or are not saving enough into a pension to look forward to a ...
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Opinion
Teresa Dolan: How salary sacrifice fits with auto-enrolment
Initially, there had been some concern over how salary sacrifice would interact with auto-enrolment requirements, given the apparent conflict between the need for permanent changes under salary sacrifice rules and the statutory right to opt out of auto-enrolment.However, HM Revenue and Customs guidance has confirmed that an employer can use ...
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Case Studies
Interaction between pension provider and payroll vital for ISS UK
Its staging date was 1 January 2013, but it has postponed it to March because January is its financial year-end.ISS appointed Now:Pensions to manage 25 to 30 schemes, which are active with between five and 1,000 members. It outsources its payroll functions to Ceridian.Fergus O’Connell, UK group financial controller, says: ...
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Analysis
Call for clarity on pension scheme charges
IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, READ THIS…The average annual management charge (AMC) on pensions is less than 1%, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.The Association of British Insurers is calling for greater transparency around pension scheme charges.The National Association of Pension Funds plans to publish an industry code ...
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Analysis
The difference between active and passive investments
IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, READ THIS…Passive and active management are simple concepts to understand. Don’t be afraid of the language.Most defined contribution (DC) default funds will be passive arrangements to offer low-cost access to investment markets.Active management can provide higher returns but is not typically used in defaults because ...
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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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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Article
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 ...