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Category: Uncategorized
What role are annuities likely to play in retirement planning in the light of pension freedoms coming into effect from 6 April 2015? There has been much debate about annuities, particularly since Chancellor George Osborne announced a number of changes to pensions from April 2015, welcomed by Standard Life in a recent bulletin.
Category: Economy & savings & Uncategorized
Did 2014 turn out to be a better than expected year for savers? According to a recent bulletin by Standard Life, the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor in early December rounded-off quite a year, with good news for ISAs and pensions.
Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized
Traditionally, December is a âslow newsâ month. Like August, the great and the good spend a large part of the month on holiday and world events supposedly move slowly, if at all.
Not so in 2014 â There was the Autumn Statement in the UK, the tumbling world oil price, the gloom over the Eurozone, the snap presidential election in Greece, rapid growth in the US economy, rapid growth in the Chinese stock market, much less than rapid growth in Japan as the economy contracted and there were the first signs of recession in Russia.
Category: retirement & savings & Uncategorized
Originally announced during The Chancellorâs Budget speech in March 2014, January 2015 will finally see the launch of the new so-called âpensioner bondsâ. The rates for the bonds, announced only recently, will see them leading the bond marketplace, with the one-year bond offering 2.80% gross/AER and the three-year bond promising 4.00% gross/AER.
Category: Investments & Uncategorized
Acknowledging that the forecasting consensus has missed many of the big stories of recent years, a team of analysts at HSBC has attempted to outline the biggest potential risks for investors in 2015. The team stressed that forecasts have been notoriously unreliable since the crash, particularly concerning regional growth. Nonetheless, they argue that downside growth risk and central bank policy risk, alongside the strong dollar and general illiquidity, could present real challenges for markets and investors in 2015.
Category: retirement & Uncategorized
The number of women saving adequately for retirement has shifted from a record low to a four-year high in the last 12 months, according to Scottish Widowsâ annual Women and Retirement Report. Half of the UK female population is now preparing adequately â the first increase recorded since 2011 â a leap of 10 percentage points from 40 to 50 in the past year following the significant changes in pensions regulations such as the introduction of automatic enrolment.
