Scottish Widows’s new digital retirement planner aims to help fill the advice gap created by the greater pension freedoms.
According to Robert Cochran, retirement specialist at Scottish Widows, the site encourages people to shop around, make use of the government’s Pension Wise service and promotes the benefits of good financial advice.
Its Retirement Planning website includes a five-step guide to help consumers through the retirement journey, with more than 8m people aged 55-65 being eligible to benefit from the new pension changes.
The site includes a pension options calculator, which allows people to input figures for the different options, as well as a range of tax calculators to help customers understand the implications of taking cash, as well as explanatory videos.
Adviser view
Chris Daems, director of Essex-based Cervello Financial Planning, said: “Any tools designed to help empower individuals to take control of their financial future has to be a positive move in the right direction and therefore tools such as this one by Scottish Widows may fill a gap.”
