Many \u00a3billions have been transferred from \u2018defined benefit\u2019 or final salary pensions to personal pensions since the introduction of George Osborne\u2019s \u201cPension Freedoms \u201c in 2015. These allowed pretty much unlimited amounts to be drawn from personal pensions, and those old pension schemes, many struggling to meet their liabilities and almost without exception closed to new members, were happy to get those remaining off their books. The amounts offered as transfer values were eye-watering, life-changing for many; and some unscrupulous advisers took advantage the regulator stepped in a couple of years ago. It\u2019s not, however, the extra rules and regs, and big compensation if it goes wrong, which has ended the boom, but what we can now call The Truss Effect. Years of low interest rates had meant that pension schemes, when looking at how much they needed to keep in reserve, mostly in government bonds, to cover their liabilities, could offer those big transfer values to cut their losses. Higher interest rates mean they need less in reserve to pay the same pensions, so those values have plummeted by many thousands in the space of a year. So for most, I\u2019m afraid, the pension transfer boat has sailed.<\/p>\n