Could insurance companies deliver a retirement ‘advice' service that is both cost effective and able to pass a public test of impartiality?
The insurance industry is capable of cost effectively delivering the Chancellor's ‘retirement advice for all' pledge, but passing the "impartiality test" would be challenging, Otto Thoresen told MPs.
The Personal Finance Society (PFS) was investigating establishing a National Retirement Advice Service before the Chancellor's Budget promise and believes an advice voucher system could be set up funded by redistributing regulatory fines.
What the changes to drawdown mean for your clients
Royal London Group chief executive Phil Loney has called on the industry and regulator to come up with a "new form of advice" to service those at point of retirement and meet the challenge set by the Chancellor.
Pensioners will be able to top up their state pension by up to £25 a week from next year under government plans published today.
Treasury select committee chairman Andrew Tyrie has criticised the regulator's review of the annuities market, saying it was headline grabbing and had "taken us very little further forward" in terms of giving insight into the problems of the market.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has raised concern over the potential risk to savers who access their full pension pots at retirement following changes announced in the Budget 2014.
Invesco Perpetual has announced that Mark Barnett's Invesco Perpetual High Income fund will move out of the IMA Equity Income sector and into the IMA UK All Companies sector on 31 March.
People who have already taken their tax-free lump sum will be given more time to decide what they want to do with the rest after the government scrapped the rule forcing action to be taken within six months.