Hidden fees are a stealth tax on all our savings: This is no free market April 27, 2016 Do you know how much your pension costs? How much the folk looking after your money are charging you? No? It’s not easy to find out. I didn’t until I demanded the information. It wasn’t just the management fee they’d advertised but many times that. Small percentages that really added up. I became suspicious when I received [...]
Retirement is popular – but surviving the pensions crisis means encouraging work April 27, 2016 The Queen’s 90th birthday quite rightly dominated the media last week. Her Majesty continues to break all sorts of records, spending longer on the throne than Queen Victoria and being our oldest ever reigning monarch. But longevity should no longer give cause for surprise. The oldest participant in the London Marathon this year was 88, [...]
Why you need to be far more careful when making notes April 27, 2016 Of all the information your colleagues shared with you yesterday, how much do you remember? What happens to the rest? There is a limit to what we can take in. Our brains cannot store, let alone process, all the facts that cross our path on an average working day. If the information is in a document [...]
We’re now more on track with our pension plans, but don’t celebrate just yet April 27, 2016 Good news! We're now better prepared for a comfortable retirement than we were this time last year. But, before you get the party started, you might want to take a closer look at the figures. One in ten (12 per cent) are now on track to afford the lifestyle they want during their retirement, up [...]
This is how many people there are retiring this year who have no pension savings… April 27, 2016 One in seven people who are retiring this year will be doing so with an empty pension pot, research released today has found. According to the study by Prudential, many soon-to-be pensioners will be left leaning on the state pension for support, despite this being £27.33 a week less than the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recommends as a minimum [...]
Blue chip bosses are a bunch of bean counters, number crunchers, and spreadsheet gurus April 27, 2016 What's the best gift you can get your boss? New research released today would suggest a calculator or an "I heart spreadsheets" mug. A study by specialist recruiter Robert Half found that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of chief executives at FTSE 100 firms are chartered accountants, while more than half (55 per cent) have a background [...]
Inflows and funds under management up for St James’s Place, and new mortgage products announced April 26, 2016 St James's Place revealed what it called a "strong" set of results today, as well as formally announcing the launch of a new mortgage offering. The wealth manager reported group funds under management of £62bn for the three months ended March 2016, up from £55.8bn the year before, while gross inflows increased to £2.5bn, up [...]
Executive pay: Focus on remuneration packages is distracting from the real issues April 26, 2016 April hasn’t been a good month to be on a remuneration committee. Earlier this month BP came under fire for awarding their chief executive a £14m deal; last week the Investment Association stated that boardroom pay practice “isn’t fit for purpose”. Anyone with responsibility for setting executive pay could be forgiven for keeping their heads below the [...]
The bucket list? Here are the top 10 things new retirees are desperate to do – and how much they cost April 26, 2016 For many, the nine-to-five slog is made just that little bit more bearable by dreams of a sunny and stress-free retirement. With warnings left, right and centre about how we're going to be working into our seventies or how nobody is saving enough for a pension, The Share Centre has issued a timely reminder for those hoping [...]
Say what? A third of us wouldn’t mind being microchipped at work April 26, 2016 Fancy having a chip implanted in you? Fancy using it at work to get around the office or log on? It may sound more like science fiction (however close it is to becoming reality) and a rather creepy concept – but surprisingly, a third of us wouldn't mind at all being microchipped at work in order to do these [...]
