Budget 2017: Experts make eight predictions as to what is in store for pensions and savings March 7, 2017 In his Autumn statement chancellor Philip Hammond resisted the temptation of making sweeping changes to pensions and savings. However, according to AJ Bell's senior analyst Tom Selby: “Tinkering with pension contribution allowances is a perennial favourite of chancellors on Budget day and Philip Hammond showed he was no exception in the Autumn Statement." Here's eight topics experts are [...]
Pensions taskforce to call for £1.5 trillion superfund to plug black holes in UK’s retirement funds March 6, 2017 A group of pensions experts will call on the government in the next few days to set up a £1.5 trillion superfund to fix the UK's pensions crisis. According to Sky News, which first reported the story, the committee set up by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) is expected to urge ministers to consolidate all of [...]
Tata Steel bidder Thyssenkrupp comes under pressure from investors to consider alternative strategies March 3, 2017 The German industrial firm vying to pick up Tata Steel is plotting alternative strategies if the deal to save Britain's largest steel operator fails. Thyssenkrupp is considering spinning off its European steel division into a separate company that could be listed, according to reports today by German publication WirtschftsWoche. Read more: Tata Steel pension scheme edges towards safety [...]
Budget 2017: Philip Hammond could raise the pensions Lifetime Allowance to fund social care and end inheritance tax discrimination to improve the nation’s finances March 1, 2017 The weeks leading up to George Osborne’s Budget statements were filled with frenzied speculation. Famed for his tinkering, the former chancellor’s Budgets enshrined a number of eye-catching and popular reforms, including landmark pension freedoms, and some not so popular ones, such as a reduction in the amount an individual can put into their pension and [...]
BHS pension scheme: Sir Philip Green has said he will contribute £363m, but what happens next? February 28, 2017 Sir Philip Green might be paying up £363m to sort out the gap in the BHS pension schemes, but that’s not the end of the saga for the fallen retailer. What options do those with BHS pensions now have? The 19,000 scheme members have three options to mull; transferring to a newly created pension scheme, [...]
Pensions triple lock: Labour calls for government to preserve payment structure beyond 2020 February 28, 2017 Labour will today demand that the government guarantees the pensions triple lock beyond 2020. In a speech on intergenerational fairness, Debbie Abrahams, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, will say the current commitments by the Conservative government are not enough. The triple lock increases state pension payments annually by either inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest. The [...]
The City boss running around for retirees: Clive Bannister on being a Phoenix from the ashes and providing a happy ending for pensioners February 27, 2017 Phoenix Group’s chief executive wasn’t looking forward to his morning commitments on 28 March 2014. “I was due to make a presentation to a rather hostile audience,” says Clive Bannister, the head of the FTSE 250 closed-book life insurer. “They didn’t want to think very kindly about Mr Bannister.” And Bannister’s day was about to [...]
Hoover looks to offload pension scheme, including a possible push into the pensions lifeboat February 26, 2017 Hoover is mulling plans to hand its pension scheme over to the pensions lifeboat in an attempt to save its ailing finances. There are almost 5,800 defined benefit pension schemes in operation across the UK, but around 4,200 of them are in deficit, dragging on many companies' finances. Now, The Sunday Times has reported electronics firm [...]
With possible changes to the way that some defined benefit pensions are indexed against inflation, there may never be a better time to cash yours in February 22, 2017 Your gold-plated final salary pension may lose some of its shine, if the ideas put forward in a new government consultation come to fruition. In a green paper on the future of defined benefit (DB) pensions, published on Monday, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) discusses the option of allowing pension scheme trustees the freedom [...]
A growing gap between what men and women receive in employer pensions contributions is causing a £47,000 shortfall for women February 22, 2017 A gap between the amount men and women receive in employer pensions contributions means there will be a near £47,000 shortfall by the end of a woman's working life. According to the Zurich Workplace Savings Barometer, a mass study of 250,000 pension plans, last year on average, men under the age of 35 received £217 [...]