Latest - PENSIONS

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  STAR Steering Group commits to ‘galvanise the industry’ on pensions and investments transfers

  17 June 2019

  STAR, the industry initiative to improve outcomes for individuals wanting to transfer their assets, such as pensions and investments, held its inaugural Steering Group meeting, including 30 funding members and the FCA, and said it is determined to galvanise the industry into signing to the initiative, ahead of the next FCA platforms paper which...

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  Pension scam warning sign awareness increasing

  17 June 2019

  Pension scam warning signs are increasing, with XPS Pensions Group announcing a surge in the number of ‘red flags’ being reported on pension transfers. The group said warning signs of scam activity jumped from 13% in June 2018 to 34% in June 2019, representing a substantial £73m of member’s pension savings. XPS said the rise...

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  FCA figures illustrate costs discrepancy between small and scaled up adviser firms

  16 June 2019

  Latest FCA figures show that smaller financial advice firms are contending with higher insurance premiums than their bigger counterparts. This illustrates the growing need for firms to scale up, suggests Canada Life.  According to the FCA figures, firms with less than £100,000 in revenues tend to spend 4% of their revenues on insurance, a figure...

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  Winners of the Professional Paraplanner Provider Awards 2019

  14 June 2019

  We are delighted to announce the winners of the Professional Paraplanner Provider Awards 2019. The awards were announced immediately after this year’s record attended London Technical Insight Seminar, to an audience of paraplanners and financial services companies gathered to hear who had won this year’s accolades. For these awards we asked our readers to nominate...

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  Appetite for DB transfers amongst adviser firms massively diminished

  12 June 2019

  The majority of advisers believe the complexity of FCA regulation around defined benefits transfers will deter them from offering advice in this area.  New research by Aegon found 7 in 10 advisers who are or have been active in advising on DB transfers said recent changes to the regulator’s expectations is impacting their likelihood...

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  10 UK pensions changes that have and are impacting financial planning

  11 June 2019

  As Curtis Banks celebrates its 10thyear as a SIPP & SSAS provider, chief executive Will Self looks at 10 key UK pension changes over that period and how they have and are impacting financial planning for clients. Curtis Banks celebrates its 10thanniversary in June. It’s been a busy ten years for us, and even...

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  Pension overpayment consequences – genuine error rules

  10 June 2019

  The fact that pensions benefit from a number of tax privileges means the rules surrounding adding and removing funds are awfullystrict. Unfortunately those limits can sometimes be breached simply by mistakes being made. After all, we are human, says Danielle Byrne, technical resources consultant at AJ Bell Most people will make a contribution to...

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  Online State Pension forecasts wrongly calculated due to ‘problems’ with HMRC data

  4 June 2019

  Pensions Minister Guy Opperman has admitted “significant” problems with incorrect state pension forecasts, leading many people to believe they will receive a higher state pension than they are due. Since 2016, over 12 million state pension forecasts have been issued and in a letter to Royal London policy director Steve Webb, Opperman suggested that...

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