Financial Services Unplugged with Tom McPhail

Guidance works

Many in the industry, myself included, have worried the advice/guidance boundary prevents businesses from helping their customers. With the help of Ian Beestin of Money Alive and Philip Hodges of Guiide, this episode explores how Guidance can in fact work within the current framework.

Guiide the Happy Retirement Designer

Risk Management Via Video Engagement - Money Alive

The annuities episode with Mark Ormston

Annuities have fallen out of fashion in recent years; given their obvious efficiency and utility, this begs the question, how and when will they be rehabilitated. Mark Ormston of Retirement Line gives us his perspective.

www.retirementline.co.uk

Retirement income market data 2020/21 | FCA

Retirement income market study | FCA

Retirement Outcomes Review | FCA

 

The Equity Release episode

In this episode, Tom talks about the equity release market and how it fits with later life financial planning. He also dissects recent publications, from the FCA/TPR on the pensions consumer journey and from the DWP on helping savers understand their pension choices

HOUSE RULES - the lang cat (langcatfinancial.co.uk)

FS22/3: Pensions consumer journey | FCA

Helping savers understand their pension choices - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Pension engagement – the Robert Cochran episode

From pension freedoms, through workplace pensions to the new engagement season advocated by the Pensions Minister, better consumer engagement on pensions is a vital element of delivering better retirement outcomes.

The Pension Credit episode with Henry Tapper

Pension Credit is money the government struggles to give away. Henry Tapper of Age Wage and I talk through the issues. We also get onto Value For Money, retirement income and CDC schemes.

Henry’s blog: Henry Tapper

It’s going to be a busy summer

A quick review of current policy initiatives from the FCA, DWP and HM Treasury suggests we may not have a lot of time for summer holidays this year.

Making allowances for pensions

Along with Andrew Tully and Paul Speight of Canada Life, I try to make some sense of the pension tax allowances, the state pension and almost inevitably, the advice/guidance boundary.

ESG with Caroline Hopper of Quietroom

Caroline Hopper and I talk about what ESG looks like from a member perspective and how should it be communicated. We also discuss how it fits into the broader picture of member engagement and fraud prevention.

If Waldorf and Statler did financial services lobbying…

OK, so they’d probably be a bit funnier than us two, but Ralph Jackson of Lansons has been doing policy making on behalf of financial services firms since before I even knew it was a thing. He has a wealth of knowledge and insight about how the system works and how firms engage with political change.

State pension age, Parliament’s review of pension freedoms and some more structural musings

The state pension age is being reviewed so I’ve put together some facts, figures and reflections on our state pension and why the whole mess is Bismarck’s fault. I've included a comparison with how the French do it. I’ve also looked at the Government’s response to the DWP Committee’s report on pension freedoms and what it tells us about government policy.