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2 months ago | 
moneymarketing.co.uk | Momodou Musa Touray |Sneha Shah |Paul Muir
Canada Life UK has appointed Peter Maddern as managing director of its retirement business. Maddern’s appointment, subject to regulatory approval, is effective from mid-February. He will join the executive committee and report to chief executive Lindsey Rix-Broom. Maddern succeeds Tom Evans, who is leaving the business to pursue a new opportunity. Evans, who was appointed to the role in May 2023, led Canada Life’s home finance business following the acquisition of Retirement Advantage in 2018.
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2 months ago | 
moneymarketing.co.uk | Majid Hussain |Trevor Greetham |Paul Muir |Paul Yates
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing mounting scrutiny over the UK’s economic difficulties. Much of the criticism is directed at the changes she announced in the Budget and those set to take effect from April 2025, particularly concerning the non-domicile tax regime, National Insurance and private-equity taxation. However, it is overly simplistic to lay all the economic woes at Reeves’ feet.
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Jan 16, 2025 | 
moneymarketing.co.uk | Paul Muir |Michael Browne |Sneha Shah |Robin Powell
When phrases such as pensions dashboards become part of your everyday vocabulary at work, it’s easy to forget those words may mean very little to non-industry people. To test this, I asked some members at my local running club to tell me what they think about the idea behind pensions dashboards. I was met with a fair few blank faces looking back at me. In fact, no one knew what I was referring to. I imagine this would be a representative response from much of the general public.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
moneymarketing.co.uk | Alistair McQueen |Momodou Musa Touray |Paul Muir
Holiday season is upon us. If you’ve already been, I hope it was great. If you’re booked and raring to go, have the best time. If you’re undecided, maybe go on a pensions “busman’s holiday”. Maybe? Here are my handy holiday hints for my fellow pensions passionistas. Pension pressures are not unique to the UK. I’d argue that one of the biggest pressures of the next 100 years will be our ageing societies. The humble pension will be at the heart of our response to that.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
moneymarketing.co.uk | Paul Muir |Claire Trott
The political landscape has shifted and a new government has been ushered in. Before Kier Starmer walked through the famous Downing Street door as prime minister on 5 July, he stood at the lectern outside and declared, “Our work is urgent and we begin it today.”Labour will have a lengthy list it wants to work through. And, after 14 years on the opposition benches, it’s no wonder Starmer wasted no time in appointing his cabinet.
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May 20, 2024 | 
professionaladviser.com | Paul Muir
I recently asked one of my colleagues to provide a summary of the key Conduct of Business Sourcebook (COBS) rules which dictate what goes into a pensions key features illustration (KFI). Back came a list of 16 major rules which we must abide by when producing pensions illustrations for our clients in 2024. There are, in reality, even more than that. That's a lot of rules which determine exactly what we must put in these illustrations.
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May 8, 2024 | 
professionaladviser.com | Paul Muir
7.5 million people might log in within the first few days alone Paul Muir continues his exploration of the pension dashboard revolution and says systems must be scaled up quickly… While the official connection deadline for more than 3,000 pension providers, holding approximately 71 million eligible pension records, to link with the Money and Pensions Service's (MaPS) pension dashboard isn't until 31 October 2026; the Pension Dashboard Programme (PDP) has made significant progress in...
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Apr 25, 2024 | 
professionaladviser.com | Paul Muir
The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) has just unveiled its guidance on its approach to a staged timeline for different types of pension schemes to be connected to the Money and Pensions Service's (MaPS) pension dashboard. All relevant pension schemes and providers are legally required to be connected to the pensions dashboards ecosystem and be ready to respond to requests for pensions information ahead of the final connection deadline on 31 October 2026.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
professionaladviser.com | Paul Muir
Keeping pensions technology up to date with financial regulatory and pensions tax reforms has become tougher of late. You only have to look at the speed and complexity of recent changes demanded by HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority to realise this. Firstly, we had the announcement of the abolition of the lifetime allowance (LTA) in the Chancellor's Spring Budget 2023. The LTA tax charge was removed on 6 April 2023 (22 days after it was first announced).
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Nov 30, 2023 | 
professionaladviser.com | Paul Muir
The impressive Scottish Widows Retirement Report 2023, together with its inaugural National Retirement Forecast (NRF), provided some unique insights associated with specific age groups as well as other ‘retirement vulnerable' groups such as the self-employed and those with a disability. However, the findings linked to young adults proved the most arresting for me.
