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...Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions has been a policy success. Since 2012, more than 11mn workers have been put into a pension set up by their employer and only around one in 10 has opted out....
...Following the minister’s speech, the Department for Work and Pensions said it was committed to the expansion of automatic enrolment “in the mid-2020s”....
...Currently, employers are not obliged to pay employee pension contributions into a scheme chosen by the worker....
...He said MEPs agreed to drop national pay and conditions in return for the new pension scheme. “It was part of the deal. It is a point of principle. I paid a lot of money into it.”...
...Before the introduction of automatic enrolment in 2012, just 55 per cent of eligible employees saved into a workplace pension....
...Those cuts have been reversed after the scheme swung into surplus just two years later....
...cash into areas that help economic growth....
...Since 2012, more than 10mn workers have been brought into workplace pension saving through automatic enrolment, where both the employer and employee are obliged to contribute a combined 8 per cent of salary...
...By law, all employers must offer a workplace pension scheme....
...But UK business has been brisk: rising interest rates have transformed funding levels in defined benefit pension schemes and enabled companies to consider offloading future liabilities....
...In fact, the UK already has in its Local Government Pension Scheme one of the largest asset-based public service pension schemes in the world....
...In a blistering blog post this week, the veteran pensions expert Henry Tapper argued that the pensions industry is also at fault, as 28mn people saving for retirement in workplace-sponsored schemes “struggle...
...Some critics have said the reform would introduce an element of “casino capitalism” into Germany’s pension provision....
...Assets have been pooled but pension schemes’ other functions, including administration or governance largely have not, says Steve Simkins of the consultancy Isio....
...The OECD numbers differentiate between unfunded public sector occupational schemes like the NHS Pension Scheme in the UK, and more general social security benefits for elderly people....
...The UK government’s top infrastructure adviser has hit out at a drive to push pension schemes to invest more in Britain, saying there is “no reason” funds should have a home bias....
...Charlie Finch, a partner at consultancy LCP who advises on pension deals, said the improved funding position of DB schemes “has been driving a trend to de-risk their investment strategies, moving into corporate...
...Should interest rates go back down sharply, today’s surpluses would turn into liabilities....
...In the decade since auto enrolment came in, many workers have ended up with a ragbag of pensions from different jobs....
...Membership of workplace pensions has grown by more than 10mn since reforms requiring employers to automatically enrol staff into company retirement plans came into force in 2012 with around £116bn invested...
...These, experts said, could include allowing employers to move some of their defined benefit pension surplus into their defined contribution pension scheme, or even taking money out for the business....
...Last year, chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced plans to relax the tax charge on surplus funds extracted by employers from company pension plans, with the changes to come into effect in April....
...Nest is the UK’s largest automatic enrolment workplace DC pension fund, with more than 12mn members and £30bn under management....
...Reintroducing credit into the mix runs the risk of opening some of the issues that were previously addressed.”...
...The regulator also wants to make greater use of reinsurance markets, and aims to encourage investors to put more money into EU insurance-linked securities — such as catastrophe bonds, which pay out for certain...
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