Government-backed financial guidance body launches, combining three previous advisory services January 3, 2019 The Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pensions Wise have been pulled together to form one central financial advice service. The Single Guidance Finance Body (SFGB), funded by levies on the financial services industry and pension schemes, launched for the new year comprising the staff of the three previous bodies. Although not a government [...]
Pensions data is stuck in the ‘dark ages’, says former pensions minister Ros Altmann January 2, 2019 The pensions industry is “light years behind where it should be” in the way it handles data, endangering the success of modernisation drives such as the government’s pensions dashboard project, according to a former pensions minister. Many small firms still handle employee data manually from spreadsheets, and half of customer auto-enrolment data uploaded by these [...]
Police raid Essex properties in £18m pension fraud probe December 19, 2018 Police have made six arrests as part of an investigation into a suspected pension scheme fraud that has conned victims out of £18m. The arrests come after a criminal investigation led by the Pensions Regulator (TPR) into a scam in which roughly 370 people were persuaded to transfer money into eight pension schemes. The regulator [...]
Dealing with the auto-enrolment challenge December 19, 2018 This year saw automatic pension contributions rise to five per cent, and an increase to eight per cent is scheduled for April 2019. While auto-enrolment has certainly been a positive step in encouraging people to save some money towards their pension, there are notable challenges that the initiative poses. The main concern is that there [...]
The Pensions Regulator names Charles Counsell as new chief executive December 18, 2018 The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has appointed the head of the Money Advice Service as its new chief executive. Charles Counsell, who was formerly executive director of automatic enrolment at TPR, will replace outgoing chief executive Lesley Titcomb in April. Counsell said: “The work that TPR does is ever more important in a world where millions [...]
Time for a brave new online pension world December 12, 2018 Imagine a free, user-friendly, online service that offers you information about all of your pension savings at your fingertips, available in your own home and on your mobile. That’s why the government has championed the pensions dashboard, harnessing digital to make planning for retirement easier in the digital age. As we all know, most parts [...]
CMA orders shake-up of pension advice market due to lack of competition December 12, 2018 Pension scheme members are at risk of getting a bad deal due to a lack of competition in the pension advice market, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA said today that pension trustees, who oversee companies’ pension schemes, are not given sufficient information to help them choose advisers. The report found [...]
Beat your demons: Barclays lets account holders block their worst spending habits December 11, 2018 Barclays has become the first high street bank to allow customers to “turn off” certain types of spending in a bid to give those with addiction better control over their money. Customers can now block payments to retailers including gambling websites, betting shops and pubs using a button in the bank's mobile app. Barclays developed [...]
Multiple ‘dashboards’ to give savers access to pensions data, first planned for next year December 3, 2018 The government has confirmed it will introduce multiple so-called pension dashboards, with the first hoped to come into effect next year, giving savers the ability to access access their pension information for several schemes at once on their smartphone. Publishing a consultation on the measure this morning, however, the government could not confirm state pensions would be included. But pensions [...]
Watchdog warns Experian-Clearscore merger would stifle competition November 28, 2018 Experian’s merger with credit score rival Clearscore could harm competition in the credit checking sector, a watchdog warned today. The proposed tie-up would “stifle product development”, hurting people trying to make sense of their finances, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). “Our investigation has shown that this is a fast-paced and evolving market, [...]