Pension news
Week ending 30 October 2020
The Government plans to require trustees to give their DC members a stronger nudge towards taking guidance, based on a statement of policy intent published this week. Trials carried out earlier this year showed that nudging members more strongly towards Pension Wise did increase the take up of the guidance service. The new proposals will require trustees and managers to:
- present taking pension guidance as a ‘normal’ part of the process of transferring/accessing a pension pot
- incorporate booking a Pension Wise appointment into their member engagement process, at the point when a member indicates they would like to take guidance.
The DWP intends to issue draft regulations for consultation, whilst the FCA will also consult on similar regulations for contract-based schemes. No specific timescales have been given for implementation.
The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) has published a progress report. This provides a summary of what the PDP has achieved since April 2020 and a high-level plan of future activity. The plan shows that dashboards are expected to be available from 2023. This is the point at which schemes and providers will be compelled by law to provide information to the dashboards. The PDP notes that this is an indicative timeline, which will be refined in the next six months.
The FCA, TPR and MaPS have issued a joint statement saying they have been engaging with Rolls Royce and the trustees of its DB scheme as a result of a spike in transfer requests following redundancies. The FCA has also issued a data request to 65 financial advisers who have advised members on transfers out of the scheme.

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Recent publications

BAC News
Hymans Robertson announces today that it has acquired Bath Actuarial Consulting (BAC). At the same time Andrew Udale-Smith and Leonard Bowman from Bath Actuarial Consulting (BAC) will be joining the firm as new Partners.

29 January 2021
In the news over the last week, the DWP responds to its consultation on climate risk governance and reporting for pension schemes, transfer-blocking powers could be on the horizon, MaPS delivers on pension guidance and there’s more de-risking.

Pensions Arena October 2020
This quarter’s Arena has a summary of our recent Pensions Perspective, “Endgame planning comes of age”, which looked at how long-term funding and investment plans are evolving and why companies are increasingly taking the lead in designing an endgame strategy. It also shows all the usual financial and investment analysis for the quarter ending 30 September 2020.

Endgame planning
Journey plans or glide paths may have been around for a long time but they’re at the heart of the Regulator’s proposed new funding code. In this Pensions Perspective, Leonard Bowman looks at how long-term funding and investment plans are evolving and explains why companies are increasingly taking the lead in designing an endgame strategy for their schemes.

Pensions Arena July 2020
This quarter’s Arena has a summary of our recent Pensions Perspective, “Emerging from lockdown”, which looked at how best to tackle the most common pension issues which companies are currently facing. It also shows all the usual financial and investment analysis for the quarter ending 30 June 2020.
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