Annuity rates have hit 14-year high after 52% increase in nine months - a benchmark annuity of £100,000 at age 65 would now pay £6,873 as Professional Adviser reports.
There is a lot of debate about this on social media this week, among advisers – not to the extent that lots of clients should be annuitising with all their assets, but that it is now part of the review conversation and could make sense for a portion of portfolios.
This is a decent story from New Model Adviser. The FCA has suggested that adviser platforms might need to build a D2C capability to look after orphan clients who have lost their adviser, due to the Consumer Duty.
It feels like rather an extreme measure. They could surely contract with one of their adviser clients to offer an advice service to these 'orphans' an opt out to a D2C platform. The latter also seems a little less than optimal.
Link Fund Solutions is to pay out a further £20m to investors in the Woodford Equity Income fund, the fifth distribution. LFS estimates that a total of £2.56bn will have been distributed to investors since the commencement of the winding up of the LF Woodford Equity Income Fund, as Money Marketing reports.
There is around £60m worth in illiquid assets, which arguably lay at the heart of the crisis for these investments.
It will be interesting to see a final reckoning in terms of what investors have lost – though of course, much depends on what you use as the basis for the calculation. Investors certainly won’t attribute much or anything to the ups and downs of the market and maybe they shouldn't given they might well have been in a better performing 'average' fund instead.
The FSCS is to close the LCF compensation scheme at the end of the month. Since the scheme began, the FSCS have been able to pay 99.5% of customers eligible for compensation. It has paid out a total of £115m.
FTAdviser’s long read sees Andrew Brigden, chief economist at Fathom Consulting ask if PM Liz Truss can get her sums to add up.
He concludes: “It needs to be either a substantial cut in spending, to match the cut in taxes – which in the teeth of a recession would be politically disastrous and economically nonsensical – or a reversal of the tax cuts. My money is on the latter, just.”
In other news, FCA research show that a quarter of consumers would withdraw pension savings earlier to cover cost of living – making them vulnerable to scammer ‘misdirection’ while an analysis of the FCA research from AJ Bell shows an 18% spike in pension access as inflation hits UK savers. Such are the times!
