Looking ahead, product innovation within the pension marketplace is a necessity according to Mr Lewis. He said: “We need a low cost, customer-focused, product that gives both certainty and flexibility. Because there are going to be millions more people wanting some certainty from their pension funds now, they can take them out when they choose.
“That is the challenge the industry so far has not met. It is just promoting expensive invested drawdown products that enable them to take a percentage of the fund for doing almost nothing with it.”
Product innovation was also a hot topic at a panel session led by Jon Cudby, editor of Money Management at the London event. He was joined by a panel consisting of John Moret, founder of MoretoSIPPs, Henry Tapper, director of First Actuarial and founder of the Pension PlayPen, Henry Cobbe, managing director of BirthStar and Jim McCaffrey, head of retirement propositions at Scottish Widows.
Elsewhere, Steve Webb, the former pension minister, told a packed room at the forum event in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, that the recent consultation on pensions taxation will not result in the creation of a pension Isa.
Pension Isa
“I do not see the Pension Isa flying,” Mr Webb said.
“The chancellor will not do something where, in the future, we have a world where demographically everyone is old and no one is paying tax in their old age. It does not make sense.”
He added that the current tax environment stops individuals from spending their pension pot as soon as they can access the freedoms, whereas a pension Isa would not have a similar effect.
A motor home and a portfolio of buy-to-let are examples of some of the things clients have spent their pension cash on, according to the advisers gathered at the same event.
Stuart Tragheim, distribution director of One Family, and co-presenter Colette Dunn, head of strategy for consultancy Milliman also explored how advisers can recognise and juggle risks, and how to rethink the way in which clients can meet their various financial needs in retirement.
Myron Jobson is a features writer for Financial Adviser
Key points
The business of giving pensions advice today is a minefield because things are changing so rapidly
The insistent client has to have the right to do whatever they like with their own money
Steve Webb said the recent consultation on pensions taxation will not result in the creation of a pension Isa
