pensions

Life and pensions manufacturers and distributors are about to get the usual heads-up in the form of third quarter sales figures, but which this year comes with the added knowledge a booming stock market is making some types of sales all the more easier....

Pensions are the "single biggest policy failure" of Gordon Brown, with lower paid workers not in defined benefit schemes suffering the most, claims the Conservatives.

The government has continued to deny accusations of maladministration in its response to a report by the Public Administration Select Committee.

Ed Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, has confirmed Isas will be made permanent and will continue indefinitely past the current deadline of 2010.

The FSA has confirmed packaged products and IFA businesses not officially covered by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive will fall under its new Conduct of Business rules.

If the government decides to abolish or alter alternatively secured pensions in the pre-Budget Report, pensioners will be left with no choice but annuities past the age of 75, but are these still a viable proposition?

This week I attended a course on the ‘tone of voice' we should use when communicating with customers. The grumpy old man in me tends to feel that today's younger generation would benefit more from learning grammar and punctuation, but tone of voice refreshers...

Draft amended regulations on how age discrimination will be applied to pensions could affect at least a third of pensions schemes, claims Mercer.

Another consumer survey suggests despite a desire to save, taxation and other factors mean most people will ultimately end up living in varying degrees of poverty in retirement.

Independent think-tank The Policy Exchange yesterday launched a series of essays which all predict in 50 years time Thatcher's children will be worse off than their parents are today.