FCA to crack down on unacceptable defined benefit pension transfer advice June 19, 2019 The Financial Conduct Authority today warned that it is to crack down on poor advice around defined benefit pension transfers. The City watchdog said too much advice it has seen to date is “not of an acceptable standard”. The FCA said it was concerned that too many financial advisers are recommending that large numbers of [...]
Obscure fees could be eroding your pension – here’s what you should be paying June 19, 2019 If you’ve ever endeavoured to compare fees charged by pension providers, you’re probably sat wild-eyed, rocking yourself back and forth. Despite the push to rid the financial sector of opaque and confusing charging structures, it’s still incredibly difficult for consumers to compare the fees levied by pension providers. Not only can it be difficult to [...]
Sainsbury’s Bank outage: Customers locked out of online banking June 18, 2019 A Sainsbury’s Bank outage spurred customers to take to Twitter today to complain they could not access their accounts online. Read more: The UK banks with the most IT outages Neither the supermarket’s new app nor online banking service wereworking for customers, with Down Detector reporting dozens of complaints this morning. An outage map showed [...]
More than five million fall victim to financial scams, Lloyds Bank warns June 14, 2019 More than five million people in the UK have fallen victim to a financial scam as fraudsters use more sophisticated techniques to dupe the public. A Lloyds Bank and YouGov survey revealed 10 per cent of adults had been scammed while a quarter said they knew someone who had conned. Read more: HMRC cracks down [...]
Time to unshackle the pensions industry June 13, 2019 When people think pensions, they probably don’t think tech and they probably don’t think innovation. I want to change that. This week is London Tech Week, when the brightest and best from across the planet come together in our great city to showcase the technologies of tomorrow. Some of the most exciting tech innovators and [...]
Rolls-Royce offloads one-third of its pension scheme to Legal & General in landmark £4.6bn deal June 6, 2019 Rolls-Royce has handed over responsibility for £4.6bn of its pension scheme to Legal & General, in a record-breaking deal. The FTSE 100 engine manufacturer has offloaded responsibility for paying the pensions of its 33,000 pensions scheme members. The scheme has a total of 76,000 members. Read more: Rolls-Royce among firms kicked off government’s late payment [...]
Should people be allowed to dip into their pensions savings to get onto the housing ladder? June 5, 2019 James Brokenshire’s proposals risk undermining the progress that has been made through auto-enrolment
Wrong state pension forecasts sent to 360,000 savers after Whitehall blunder June 4, 2019 The government has admitted “significant” problems with state pension forecasts, after revealing hundreds of thousands of people have received erroneous information. Read more: Amber Rudd gives pensions dashboard project green light Three per cent of pensioners may have made financial decisions based on false information sent by the government since 2016. This amounts to about [...]
Pensions industry veteran Chris Curry to lead delivery group for dashboard scheme June 3, 2019 A Whitehall initiative designed to give savers easy access to pensions information has taken another step towards hitting the market. Read more: Amber Rudd gives pensions dashboard the go ahead The Money and Pensions Service has appointed industry veteran Chris Curry to help deliver the so called pensions dashboard. He will be tasked with forming [...]
Invest in green energy, urges minister, as financial risks of climate change ‘too important to ignore’ June 3, 2019 Pensions minister Guy Opperman has urged fund managers to “do the right thing” and put money into renewables. Read more: Shell switches 700,000 customers to renewables as it rebrands First Utility Speaking in London, he said pension and investment managers must take their environmental responsibilities seriously to help fight global warming. Opperman said: “The financial [...]