Standard Life

The Pensions Regulator should not try to take on the role of an economic regulator by looking at the issue of charges in the regulation of defined contribution schemes, warns Standard Life.

Not sure if it's just me that has a good laugh about this, but I've managed to spend an amusing late morning musing on the latest results announcements from Aviva and Standard Life.

HM Revenue & Customs have finally published updated guidance on the position of tax relief relating to employer contributions into pensions, confirming the 'wholly & exclusively' rule will only be applied in limited circumstances.

Standard Life saw its life and pensions sales rise by over half in 2006 on the back of key changes at A-Day and a redirection of pensions investments towards sipps.

There are rumours in the protection industry the Treasury may reach a middle ground on pension term assurance and allow a watered-down version of the product to continue.

Standard Life cites the need for ‘investment flexibility' as the reason for not increasing the annual bonus rates on with-profits policies, despite a record year for equity-based returns.

Claims suggesting an investment platform could be used to resolve the issue of protecting tax-free cash when consolidating pensions are unfounded, says Standard Life.

Last October Callum McCarthy started a speech he delivered at Gleneagles by saying that in the 18th Century we exported our convicts to Australia. It appears that at the start of the 21st Century some (Australians, not convicts!) have made the return...

HSBC has teamed up with insurer Standard Life to target self-invested personal pensions at small to medium businesses and commercial customers of the bank.

Trevor Matthews, chief executive of UK life and pensions at Standard Life, was this morning forced to apologise to staff for racist comments made in an internal pensions presentation.