Retirement

Norwich Union has launched an information pack which is designed to help IFAs understand how pensions simplification will affect their client's policies and how to plan for its implementation on A-Day.

Advisers taking the K10 or K20 Advanced Financial Planning Certificate retirment planning exams will from April be required to sit a two-hour, two section paper instead of the previous format, says the Chartered Insurance Institute.

There is potential for another mis-selling scandal if the Inland Revenue's proposals on income drawdown, which will give consumers more flexibility to choose how much money to withdraw, come into force, warns the Drawdown Bureau.

Residential property can be included as part of an owner director's SSAS investment providing the property is inhabited by a third-party tenant, according to an IFA firm who has now created such schemes.

Rebuilding public confidence in long-term savings will require fresh thinking from the government, financial services industry and employers as well as access to basic financial advice, the National Consumer Council will tell Treasury Select Committee...

IFAs have to start preparing both their clients and themselves for coming pension tax simplification reforms, despite not knowing the final details or if the proposal will go through at all, says Stewart Ritchie, pensions development director at Scottish...

Amendments are being made to the format and the content of stakeholder pensions decision trees, says the FSA, which consumers are expected to use when deciding whether or not to take out a pension.

Four-in-five Independent Financial Advisers no longer believe A-day 2005 is feasible, Scottish Equitable says.

SIPPs and SSASs administrator AJ Bell says proposals allowing individuals to set up pension schemes buying residential property from themselves are "madness", and that it is a mystery why the Inland Revenue would suggest such a thing given the difficulties...

Just over half of the 'official' employed working sector, or 14.3m people, are now in contracted-out money purchase arrangements, according to figures estimated by the Department of Work and Pensions.