“Brits will find it harder to retire comfortably in the UK, study claims”

Sep 7, 2023 | Financial Services

Here’s more on that self-same Advice Gap. One reason that many correctly think it will become harder, if at all possible to retire is that auto-enrolment pensions will never without attention, provide a comfortable income; if your definition of comfortable is about what you’re earning now. And the paring back of charges, a good thing of course for the pensions themselves, means that advice in the workplace will only be available if a kind employer pays for it. Go figure. This goes hand-in-hand with the demise of final salary pensions, now only available in watered-down versions in what’s left of the public sector. Yes, I know, there are all sorts of reasons for this, mainly the aging population. When they were invented, many of those pensions would only have been paid for 5 or 10 years and now we’re all living longer. That’s a ‘problem’, however, which may self-correct if we don’t sort both pensions and the NHS in pretty short order. 

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“Advisers fearful of further compliance and regulation”

“Advisers fearful of further compliance and regulation”

We know, of course we know, that regulation is, or at least should be a ‘good thing’. If those who need or should seek advice can be confident that they’ll be told the right thing, that someone has looked at those ’too good to be true’ investments before they’re allowed to take your money; or, in the case of a Woodford, while they’re raking it in to make sure it’s going where it’s supposed to.