In brief - May 2011
Nest awards ethical and sharia mandates
Nest Corporation has selected F&C Asset Management and HSBC Global Asset Management to run itsethical and sharia mandates respectively. The equity portion of Nest’s Ethical Fund will invest in the F&C Stewardship International Fund while Nest’s Sharia Fund will invest solely in the HSBC Life Amanah Pension Fund. This fund passively tracks the Dow Jones Islamic Titans 100 index.
www.nestpensions.org.uk
Liability cover
ACE has been appointed with its partner OPDU (The Occupational Pensions Defence Union) to provide and administer pension trustee liability cover to the trustees of Nest (the National Employment Savings Trust pension scheme).
http://www.opdu.com/
Five million friends
Friends Life is a new name, but has a rich heritage of over 200 years and with 5m customers.
http://www.friendslife.com/
Longer work, more tax
The government’s decision to raise the state pension age for women from 60 to 65 could see HM Revenue & Customs benefitting from a potential extra £4.9bn in income tax a year from women who choose to remain in the workforce, according to MetLife Europe.
http://www.metlife.com/
A lens on life
Lifelens is a new integrated employee centric portal from Standard Life providing employee pension and non-pension benefit solutions to the workforce. Already IBM and Standard Chartered bank have signed up.
http://www.standardlife.co.uk/
Workplace confusion
Of advisers recently surveyed by Tenet, 93% believe that the government has not provided enough clarity for employers regarding the forthcoming workplace pension reforms. Meanwhile, 69% of respondents to the third Punter Southall survey of DC pension provision have not begun to prepare for next year’s introduction of auto-enrolment. Less than a third (30%) thought their current scheme would be compliant with the new requirements. A further third had not yet considered the impact of the removal of the default retirement age.
www.puntersouthall.com
Limbering up
B&CE has unveiled its workplace pension offering – an improved EasyBuild Workplace Pension – which fulfils all the administrative obligations employers will face under the auto-enrolment changes coming into effect from 2012.
http://www.easybuildpension.co.uk/
QROPS fading
SIPP provider AJ Bell expects the HM Treasury clampdown on the use of qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes (QROPS) by individuals remaining in the UK and the introduction of flexible drawdown to accelerate the fall in the number of QROPS transfers. QROPS transfers have fallen from a high of 6,263 in 2008/9 to 5,659 in 2009/10.
http://www.ajbell.co.uk/
Retirement on hold
More than a third (38%) of people due to retire in 2011 are cancelling their plans and delaying retirement.
www.pru.co.uk
Author: Pensions World
Pensions World is the leading monthly magazine for pensions professionals published by Butterworths Tolley.
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