Personal PensionMay 28 2015

Regulators must reduce hurdles for advisers: Aegon

twitter-iconfacebook-iconlinkedin-iconmail-iconprint-icon
Search supported by
Regulators must reduce hurdles for advisers: Aegon

Governments around the world should be doing more to reduce the regulatory burden on providers and advisers to help more people plan for their retirement and become ‘habitual savers’, according to Aegon.

The recommendations come from the Aegon Centre for Longevity and Retirement’s 2015 retirement readiness survey, which questioned 16,000 people in 15 countries during February.

During a webinar hosted by Aegon, FTAdviser asked if they had any specific recommendations for financial advisers.

Mike Mansfield, manager of retirement research at the Aegon Centre for Longevity and Retirement, said Aegon recommends cutting the regulatory burden to make it easier for financial advisers to help more people plan for their retirement.

“Governments can do more to lower the hurdles to people getting advice,” he stated, adding that the insurance industry has products and services that can help people, while financial advisers should also be helping out with promoting the culture of habitual saving.

The research itself found that as many as four in 10 people are not saving anything for their retirement, but half of these non-savers have aspirations to save.

Financial considerations such as receiving a pay raise (45 per cent) or more generous tax breaks (33 per cent) would help to unlock the savings potential of many non-savers, while simplifying investment products could encourage a further one-fifth to start saving.

Around 18 per cent said that having access to financial education would help them become more aware of what they need to do to plan for retirement. A similar number (17 per cent) said that having access to financial advice for personalised recommendations on the steps they should be taking would also help them.

“Across many of the countries in our survey, governments recognise their role in promoting access to information and advice, but there is still much progress to make,” the report noted.

The report suggested that governments should run public awareness campaigns to help people make the most of their workplace benefits, along with reforming retirement ages to send a clear message about working longer and phasing retirement.

The study also focused on what employers can do to help, suggesting that changing the design of workplace pension schemes is crucial.

“By including features such as automatic enrollment and automatic escalation, employers already play a large role in some countries,” the document read, adding that in the Netherlands, mandatory participation results in over 88 per cent of employees being covered by private pension plans.

The research follows last week’s launch of the centre. The centre aims to help people take greater responsibility for their long-term financial security.

peter.walker@ft.com