EBS

David Norgrove, chair of The Pensions Regulator has called for greater scrutiny of trustees offering incentives to employees who transfer their accrued benefits away from final salary or defined benefit schemes.

Speaking at the NAPF Conference, he said: ”Trustees should start from the presumption that such exercises and transfers are not in member’s interests. If a company is willing to encourage the transfer, the company’s gain is likely to be the member’s loss.”

EBS has a specialist adviser, Steve Randall, qualified to provide advice on the suitability of any occupational pension scheme transfers. David Norgrove’s speech does not refer to transfers of stakeholder or personal pensions.  

For a full copy of the speech visit: href=”http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/mediaCentre/pressReleases/pn09-20.aspx”>http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/mediaCentre/pressReleases/pn09-20.aspx

14th December: For the third successive month, one of the companies participating in the tender process to administer the Government’s proposed National Pensions Savings Scheme (due to be launched in 2012) has withdrawn. Great-West Retirement Services (December), Logica UK (November) and ATP (October) have all withdrawn as the delays imposed by the Government make the proposition look less attractive.

Commentators are already suggesting that whilst auto-enrolment of all employees into a pension scheme will still happen from 2012, it would be more cost-effective for the Government to achieve this utilising either State pensions (which the Government is not too keen on) or the private sector, via group stakeholder or personal pension arrangements.

For details of the latest proposals and how they will affect you, click here for our single page summary.

It emerged late yesterday that the Pre-Budget Report included yet another delay to the full implemenation of the National Pension Savings Scheme (‘NPSS’ or ‘Personal Accounts’). Read the rest of this entry »