As Nikhil Rathi is reappointed as CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for another five years, the FCA has set out its strategic direction for 2025/26, with important implications for financial advisers.

The lifetime allowance may have been consigned to the annals of history but the various forms of protection are still relevant in the new world, especially when it comes to the amount of pension commencement lump sum (PCLS) that can be taken.

The dark reality of pension scams is that we don’t really know how common they are. Fraud is a crime which tends to have low reporting events and with pension scams, it’s no different. The emotional toll can be as large as the financial, with some people being too embarrassed to report that they have been the victim of a scam.

While 2024 ended with a lot of doom and gloom in the pension world following the big announcement on inheritance tax (IHT), there was some good news that may have slipped under the radar of some advisers.

Age 75 has been an important milestone in pension rules since A day in 2006. It was the latest age at which a compulsory annuity purchase was required (prior to Pensions Freedoms). It's arguably it’s long been an arbitrary line in the sand, noting that life expectancy has been on the increase for the last 20 years, but this trigger age has remained unchanged.

Two in five, 43%, UK workers don’t know how much they are contributing to their workplace pension.

Workplace pension provider TPT Retirement Solutions has launched a DC decumulation product, which it said has been designed to simplify retirement income planning for savers.

More than 1.5m UK workers say they cannot afford to save into a pension.

Simpler pension transfers took an average of just 11 days to complete in the lead up to the end of the 2024/25 tax year.

Since the announcement that pensions are to be included in estates for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes the question of whether those with large pension pots should be giving some funds away has become increasingly common.