Panorama - Pensions Charges

dunstonh

can anyone clarify why the Dutch seem to have a better system giving up to 50% higher returns?.

They dont. The research was flawed and inaccurate and many media outlets pulled the links to that research.

yelf

leveller2911 wrote: »

Generally speaking it seems from the posts on the subject that the financial advisors and pension experts on here are a bit !!!!!! off with the lack of a clarity on the programme can anyone clarify why the Dutch seem to have a better system giving up to 50% higher returns?.

In lay-mans terms would be nice......

THe BBC should be ashamed - in this time of hardship, and bearing in mind the massive pension deficits, to scare monger like that is a disgrace. If an IFA or life company advertised for a pension in a way the /BBc went against a pension, they would be fined to the hilt by the FSA - pathetic !!!!!!!!.

nick2005

i have invested with st james place for the last 14 years in a pension ,
thinking it was good but when i watch panorama last night .
i had a look at my pension ,
and worked out i had pay in more money then it was worth.
and they sayed i would have £340 000 at the end of the 25 years
now it looks like i be lucky to have even £100 000 at the end of the 25 years.
can anyone say where i can move my pension fund too.
so i get a better return
thank you
nick

dunstonh

i have invested with st james place for the last 14 years in a pension ,
thinking it was good but when i watch panorama last night .

SJP has never been a good pension. Typically one of the most expensive on the market.

and they sayed i would have £340 000 at the end of the 25 years
now it looks like i be lucky to have even £100 000 at the end of the 25 years.

Why would it be that much different? Did your illustrations assume an annual inflation indexation but you went level premiums? (same each year)

can anyone say where i can move my pension fund too.

Any local IFA.

so i get a better return

No one can guarantee a better return as returns are always unknown. However, they should be able to get lower charges.

nrsql

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I returned to UK in 2006 after 6 years abroad. One of the most striking observations I had was the unimaginable degree of "dumbing down" and 'lack of intelligence' demonstrated by the BBC. It probably happened gradually and I wouldn't have noticed it as much if I had stayed in UK.

I tend to feel it is partly an education issue (i.e. their researchers don't have enough O levels can't cut it any more), partly a strive for sensationalism (best left to the tabloids), and partly a complacency over the years where they have concentrated much more on re-distributing the wealth (salaries) within the BBC under the umbrella of a recession-proof income.

Oh well. Sadly we cannot escape the license fee.

I'll agree with all that. Panarama used to go quite deeply into issues but now it's just shallow and sensasionalist with very little information, explanation or justification. Reminds me of Jeremy Vine's cowboy illustration of the election.
I now find myself asking what they really mean and don't expect to have so many fundamental questions at the end of a program.
Think it's a lot due to the experienced staff cuts and lack of expert review of the material. Thos one looked like an incomplete program which they just decided to put out.

vbm

I missed the programme on Monday but caught it on the web yesterday.

I honestly wonder if the BBC thought they were conducting a hard hitting investigation and just got their methodology wrong or whether they decided to bascial/y do a hatchet job and knew they were being deliberatly misleading.

Either way the programme was a total crock

Loughton_Monkey

vbm wrote: »

I honestly wonder if the BBC thought they were conducting a hard hitting investigation and just got their methodology wrong

I think that's almost certainly the true bit. The problem is that, sadly, the intellect at the 'researcher' level is severely diluted and flawed - probably without specialisms any more. Today, the technical inner workings of pensions, tomorrow, the gestation period of Icelandic Haddock.

vbm wrote: »

or whether they decided to bascial/y do a hatchet job and knew they were being deliberatly misleading.

This certainly would have entered into it too, driven by the overpaid middle management levels. But they, too, have an intellect problem. Why, otherwise, would they think that a slimy con-merchant who ripped off a poor blind man with a pension transfer, or the far more complicated -and now ancient - Equitable Life issue, had anything whatsover to do with whether or not pension providers are over-charging annual management fees?

Nobody but nobody who can understand the mathematics of AMC, and what they do to a pension policy, and put forward (possibly with some justification) the debate could also fail to spot the total irrelevance of a lot of the content and so-called argument.

So either they are incredibly stupid, or otherwise think that the whole of the viewership are.

vbm wrote: »

Either way the programme was a total crock

Agreed. Probably next time, they will try to assert that supermarkets are over-packaging (which may or may not be true). But they will 'prove' it by telling you how much bonus the CEO gets, how Waitrose have started charging for parking, and how some poor guy lost his Tesco Share certificates and couldn't sell them!

peterbaker

can anyone clarify why the Dutch seem to have a better system giving up to 50% higher returns?.

dunstonh wrote: »

They dont. The research was flawed and inaccurate and many media outlets pulled the links to that research.

DH, could you please detail how you know the Dutch do not have a better system and how you know the researched was so flawed that you have just dismissed the Dutch system out of hand?

And if "many media outlets" pulled the links to the research can you say who, and where links to that research still exist so we can see for ourselves?

You well know my view. I am someone who spent the best part of my career inside the insurance and financial services industry, and I got ripped off and am continuing to be ripped off by several different companies.

You have told me a number of times that it was my own fault, that I should have moved parts of my several pension pots to arrangements with lower charges, yet all of my pension pots are with major industry names.

The industry is absolutely plagued by spivs from top to bottom. Look at that vomit-inducing letter to the Times last week from the gang of 17. The same applies to the political system and to the regulatory arena, and to large sections of the media commentary circus.

If you want to play any kind of financial games (buy financial services) then you might just as well go to your local bookie. At least you know where to find him tomorrow.

Otherwise, if people truly wish to save, then they might simply buy things of real value and beauty which they know cannot be devalued at a stroke because these are enduring concepts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but I think most beholders agree that the financial services industry is the pits. It makes me feel physically sick every time I think about it, which unfortunately is pretty much every day.

dunstonh

DH, could you please detail how you know the Dutch do not have a better system and how you know the researched was so flawed that you have just dismissed the Dutch system out of hand?

There were various reports on where the data was flawed. There are the key bits:

1 - The fund used for the Dutch example was the cheapest available. it was an institutional fund, not a retail fund.
2 - The dutch system prices on each layer. i.e. that was just the fund charge. The research did not include the product/tax wrapper charge or the cost of advice.
3 - The UK pricing was 50% higher than the benchmark that was put in place in 2001. i.e. 1.5% is what they used for the UK. Yet 1% is seen as the benchmark and has been for nearly 10 years.
4 - The UK pricing included product/tax wrapper cost and the cost of advice.

So, just listing those things you can see that it is clearly not like for like. Its effectively picking the cheapest option in one country and comparing it to the most expensive options in another country and then saying look how much better their system is. If we picked the UK equivalent it would have a 0.1% AMC. Not 1.5%.

peterbaker

DH,

Thank you as always for engaging fully with my blunt questions.

The way I look at those 4 points you offer is this:

1. Yes the Dutch cheapest available scheme which you describe as "institutional" is also the biggest in terms of numbers of members, is that not correct ? Then maybe the funds we are encouraged to use should also be "institutional" although I am not sure what you mean by the word. I kind of got the impression that the Dutch scheme was a simple scheme with simple government-set rules. I like simple with government-set rules. It is a big step to transparency.

2. You mention layers, fund charge, product/tax wrapper charge and the cost of advice. Not interested in those. Don't need those in a simple scheme that most of my neighbours might also be in and if I trust my government.

3. Benchmark pricing for charges? Not interested. Why should I be interested in benchmarks if I am not paying anyone a cut to help me decide or to play with my money in their speculative game? I have never in my 30 odd years of working life met anyone in UK financial services who has survived alongside the advice they have given. One or both fall too quickly by the roadside. The reason is that the advice is just a game and the players tire of old games very quickly, constantly change the rules and if you are daft enough to step back in and call yourself a player who understands the risks after the rules have been corrupted then you'll soon have the shirt taken off your back, even if they daren't take it while you were away.

4. UK pricing/wrappers/advice again? Not worth a light. Not relevant.

Like-for-like? You want to dumbdown a working Dutch system and load it with the type of charges that the UK Financial Services industry likes to see? You must be joking.

Show me more of the Dutch scheme that the BBC told us works please :money:

If it is cheap simple reliable and it is generally understood by all he neighbours in the street to work for them, then let's have that please.

We have nothing in the UK like that. I think we just have expensive trash which no two neighbours have a clue about unless they are in the gang of 17.

Incidentally, I followed that link provided earlier in this thread that sandsy gave us ... to the FSA's charges comparison calculator thingy ... http://www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/tab...spoke/Pensions

The first time I'd ever seen it or used it. I input age 55, £500 per month, retire at 65. Who were the highest chargers by far?

Worst was HSBC - that fat boxer b|tch that was constantly licking its chops

Second was that surprisingly cheeky Jack Russell, the Co-op, same as the Panorama programme unearthed.

Third was surely then Legal and General, the dalmation ... but no ... my goodness DH, maybe you were right, no spots on them? It's that bad lady in the black hoodie - Scottish Widows - not sure what kind of b|tch she really is ...

Fourth, out of the list of 49 ... get your spots out again ... it's Legal and General

Fifth highest charges, Legal & General ... another of there dalmation "wrappers"? How many dog funds have L&G got out there? 101 maybe?

Wait, I've got it, that bad lady in the black hoodie, she's Curella de Ville, right? But I thought she didn't like dogs?? Can't trust anyone thesedays to perform to type can we?

I am sorry, DH, but once again, I feel sick.