Is this the answer to pension freedom without the pain?
More than five years since pension freedom arrived a solution to take the pain out of investing in retirement is being lined up. Before pension freedom many savers were locked into buying an annuity with their personal pensions or defined contribution work schemes – and a lot of them felt they were getting a raw deal. That’s meant that keeping a pension invested and drawing on it as you choose in retirement has proved a very popular option. It is also a very tricky one to navigate – but now some simple help is at hand, so will it crack the conundrum of pension freedom without the pain? Tumbling annuity rates, an industry that failed to make sure people shopped around and the gamble on life expectancy that meant if you died early then you and your family would lose out, made annuities hugely unpopular. So, Chancellor George Osborne came up with a big bang approach that meant nobody had to if they didn’t want to anymore. The problem is that many people had simply opted for a ‘pay money into my pension while working and not think about it’ approach and so had no real idea how to invest for retirement. Now the industry has come up with a solution that involves savers being offered four ready-made investment deals when they first dip into their pension pots, if they do so without financial advice. On this week’s podcast George Frost, Tanya Jefferies and Simon Lambert, discuss whether this is the answer that savers need. They also look at the tsunami of pension and investment scams, what people can do to protect themselves and ask whether it’s the FCA or Google and the social media companies that should be doing more to crack down on it. Simon outlines his theory on why just as we are about to be able to get out and enjoy ourselves again, some big ticket inflation might hit. And the team look at another Santander 123 account rate cut – is it time for customers to finally give up, or is it a deal still worth having?