Before you get stuck in...
Jonathan ParkerHead of Defined Contribution& Financial Wellbeing
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Welcome to the second edition of The Defined Contrarian for 2023. The lengthy spell of cold, wet weather has given way to a lengthy spell of blistering warmth and lack of rain! In true curmudgeonly style, I now long to return to cooler, wetter days. Roll on autumn!
The Redington DC team has had a very busy start to the year, aided by the numerous consultations and the ever-growing focus on how best to serve individuals as they move closer and through retirement. A new contributor to The Defined Contrarian, Carolyn Schuster-Woldan, explores the opportunities that the broadening of the collective-DC ('CDC') regulations might offer. Although we’ve yet to see the results from the consultation, the chance for other parts of the DC market to consider CDC as an option will be a fascinating development.
Following a research report we published, we hosted a roundtable back in April on the future of retirement income. Russ Wright, who led the project, summarises the discussions that came out of the event. As we intend to continue this theme as part of our future research agenda, we’d welcome your views on where we should focus next.
We've two further articles prompted by important live regulatory changes: pension dashboards and value for money (‘VFM’). Dashboards continue to be an initiative that Redington strongly supports. Still, the complexities of it are becoming apparent, with a delay to the staging date announced by Laura Trott (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Pensions). Paul Enderby makes the case for why the industry needs to keep its nerve. Russ Wright returns for a second appearance, this time on VFM. Again, although we await the outcome of the recent consultation, there’s likely to be a significant impact on all workplace pension schemes as the FCA, TPR, and DWP join together to propose a common approach to measuring VFM.
Finally, Celine Legaspi from our Manager Research team introduces what we expect to be one of the big new areas of investment opportunity over the next ten years: nature-based solutions.
As always, please do get in touch if you’d like to discuss any of the matters raised in this edition.
Before you get stuck in…