The Department for Work and Pensions has dropped plans for a web-based pension service for people who cannot afford advice because it admits it does not know what future pen- sion provision will look like.
The Retirement Planning web service, costing the taxpayer £11m, was intended to provide advice on planning and saving for retirement for people on low to medium incomes. The first element of the service, the provision of online state pension forecasts, was delivered in 2004 and the remainder was due this year. But the DWP says it has suspended the plans due to the radical reforms made in the Pensions White Paper. It says delivering accurate online information about state pensions would become increasingly difficult given the uncertainty about the exact shape of future pension provision. A spokesman says that the project was also deemed too expensive as it would have cost a further £14m to maintain and update between now and 2010.View more on these topicsNews
L&G set for offshore division
Legal & General is recruiting a chief executive to set up and run a new offshore division based in Dublin, Money Marketing understands. The firm has made no secret in the past of its aim to eventually enter the offshore arena but has never committed to a timescale for entry or released any further details […]
Sense of clarity
With both the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission taking an interest in the effect of non-disclosure on claims, it’s likely that we will see a step change in the way non-disclosure is dealt with.
Bill Mott U-turn at Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse investment guru Bill Mott has agreed to stay on as strategic director at the group two weeks after announcing his retirement.Mott was due to retire at Christmas but the sudden departure of Errol Francis, who has run the flagship income, monthly income and alpha funds for the past year to become number two […]
Fidelity completes American special situations fund transition
Fidelity American special situations fund manager Bob Haber has completed his three month transition of the fund by reducing the number of stocks from 200 to 54.Haber has also increased the fund’s large cap bias although it still has a bigger weighting to companies smaller than the S&P 500, and has made the portfolio more […]
The death of retirement – a boost for protection?
According to our recent report on the death of retirement, changes in workplace pension provision mean that coming generations of retirees could have a radically different experience of retirement from their parents. The average contribution rate into an old-style final salary pension was around 20 per cent of total wages, the statutory minimum for a […]
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Can a healthier body really lead to a healthier mind?
There are growing signs that positive lifestyle decisions taken now could lead to positive effects on mental capacity in later life. Vitality’s Deepak Jobanputra examines the emerging evidence.
Amyr Rocha-Lima: Why HR officers should be your next business relationship target
Being the dedicated adviser to the employees of local businesses will boost your reputation and grow your firm Taken at face value, the roles of financial planner and HR officer may not appear to have much in common. Yet, the two can dovetail perfectly in some situations. The most obvious benefit is when it comes […]
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Are DFM deals really taking risks off advisers?
Advisers must be able to trust their discretionary fund manager as decisions that backfire could still be the advisers’ responsibility, experts say. In the latest edition of Money Marketing’s series of live debates, MM Wired, gbi2 consulting director Graham Bentley, Signpost Financial Planning chartered financial planner Nigel McTear, Charles Stanley senior investment manager Will Walker-Arnott […]