pensions

National Pensions Tracing Day 31 Oct 2021

From Cliff Weight, ShareSoc Director A friend from Punter Southall, sent me a round robin email and I thought all ShareSoc members would find it of interest and many would find it useful to help them find their investments. Hello and good morning.  You are one of just 30 people I have chosen to send this message to. National Pension Tracing Day (NPTD) is coming up this weekend and I’m hoping that you can support the campaign in some way, whether that’s with your ...

ShareSoc fully supports the Better Finance Report on Pension Savings and its recommendations

ShareSoc is a member of the Pan-European organisation Better Finance and commented “This is an important report that highlights the harm that inadequate returns give to long term savers. High fees are also hurting returns. The UK Pensions Fund are valued at £3.8 trillion and are by far the largest in Europe. It is important that the UK lead the way in this area. The recent appointment by the FCA of Chris Sier to chair the panel on costs disclosure is another ...

FAMR and Advice Services

Just before the Budget was announced, the Final Report of the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR) was published. That Review was the latest examination of the financial advice market. To put it in some historic perspective, the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) was introduced to improve the quality of financial advice provided and remove obvious bias. So financial advisors had to stop bundling, and effectively hiding, the cost of advice when selling financial products but had to declare it. This certainly improved the ...

Pension Reforms – FCA Rule Changes to Protect Fools

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is concerned that many people are taking cash out of their pension pots and investing it in risky propositions or blowing it without taking suitable advice. They have launched a new public consultation therefore on rule book changes under the title "Pension reforms - proposed changes to our rules and guidance". They must consider it urgent as we only have to the end of October to respond. One particular change that might affect our readers is that ...

Inheritance tax giveaway by the Chancellor

The announcement by George Osborne yesterday (29/9/2014), that a tax on pension funds is to be scrapped is a major giveaway for investors. It would seem we are already into the 2015 election campaign. At present anyone holding a SIPP (the most cost effective way to hold your pension fund) or other defined contribution pensions (e.g. personal pensions), faces a hefty tax bill when they die after the age of 75, or earlier if the fund is already in "drawdown", i.e. paying ...