Bee says A-Day opportunities will only be enjoyed by ‘chubby cats’

A-Day represents a massive opportunity for advisers but they should forget about winning new business from young people on low in- comes, says Scottish Life head of pensions Steve Bee.

Speaking to a room packed with IFAs at the Institute of Financial Planning conference last week, Bee said advisers should concentrate on the 10 to 12 million people currently in occupational pensions.

But he warned advisers not to expect a fresh wave of clients after A-Day as he said the legislation would fail to encourage the millions of people without pensions to save.

He said the new opport- unities afforded by A-Day, such as the ability to place residential property into Sipps and the new concurr-ency rules, would only be enj- oyed by so-called “chubby cats”, high earners with a good pension in place already.

He said: “A-Day is great for advisers if they work on people who already have pensions and ignore those without a pension. Its too difficult to advise these people as A-Day is good for the chubby cats but its not good for young people with no savings that the Govern- ment should really be thinking about.”