Contingent charging applied by honest and trustworthy advisers will benefit many people, but contingent charging applied by companies that should not be advisers in the first place will be harmful for people.
It is difficult for the FCA to balance these two different views, and this is an issue that will continue to be a hot potato.
Investment pathways
Investment pathways for new non-advised drawdown customers are due to be introduced in August 2020. The new pathways are for non-advised consumers, but it may impact advisers and their clients.
Customers starting a new drawdown plan without advice will be given a choice of four different pathways depending on their objectives: no plans to touch their money; set up a guaranteed annuity; start taking a drawdown income; or withdraw all their funds.
The aim is to stop people defaulting to cash and to make a sensible investment decision.
Hopefully one of the consequences of the new pathways is that people may realise they need advice on which pathway is best for them.
Lifetime allowance
The lifetime allowance will edge up from April, when it is likely to hit £1.073m.
It is only a small increase (from £1.05m) but is useful for planning purposes.
There are still many unintended consequences of the lifetime allowance, as evidenced by the problems it causes for senior medical practitioners.
The government should show more urgency in addressing these problems.
Those involved with setting pension policy will no doubt be busy working to make progress on the issues mentioned above. Those involved at the coalface of pension advice will also be working hard, but in a different way: advisers will be working to get better solutions for their existing clients and to make advice more widely available to new prospective clients.
Advisers must implement the rules and regulations passed down to them, but policy makers do not necessarily take note of the opinions that are passed up to them.
Billy Burrows is retirement director at Better Retirement
