Retirement

MA KNOWS BEST

AJ Bell is stepping up its income drawdown lobbying activities by urging clients and advisers to write to their MP.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has underlined the importance of advisory firms carrying our cost comparisons when undertaking replacement business.

The government has responded to union threats of a general strike by refusing any further negotiation of public sector pension and pay reform.

A pensions specialist is challenging calls from a Conservative councillor to lifts restrictions on residential property investment in SIPPs, stating some issues must be "carefully thrashed out" first.

LV= is reducing its equity release rates and will no longer charge a higher rate of interest on loans over £600,000 from today.

FIVE THINGS

Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are far more likely to rely on personal and occupational pensions than their heterosexual peers, research from LGB equality group Stonewall says.

More than half of the working population is still unaware of the government's automatic enrolment programme, just three weeks before its launch, a report has found.

The industry has to find new ways of providing low-cost advice on an ‘industrial scale' after the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), Scottish Widows has said.