pensions

Advisers are being reminded a deadline to protect large pension pots from tax charges is approaching.

Richard Taylor has been appointed as managing director of A J Bell Pensions, responsible for its SSAS and SIPP business.

Aegon has launched a flexible adviser remuneration option for annuities in a bid to close the advice gap for customers with smaller pension pots.

Delaying pension contributions by ten years at the age of 25 could cost around £40,000 more to get the same level of retirement income, according to Legal & General.

Friends Provident expects new pensions business to fall further in the second half of 2008 as it continues to pay for pipeline business after disbanding initial commissions.

A large proportion of communication with existing and potential DC pension scheme members is failing, largely because it is mis-targeted, according to BlackRock.

Standard Life has been hit with the huge task of writing to around 35,000 customers in its pension and investment plans to explain about errors in the pricing of some internal funds.

The CII Group has launched a new Certificate in Life and Pensions to be added to its framework of financial services qualifications.

The proportion of Defined Benefit (DB) schemes open to new entrants is expected to fall from 25% to 18% by 2010 and 14% in the next 5-10 years, according to Watson Wyatt's Pension Plan Design Survey 2008.

The most common single source of complaints against pension schemes was decisions not to award ill-health pensions, the Pensions Ombudsman says in its Annual Report and Accounts for 2007/8 .