Summer has come to an end, and it’s been a season of change for DC master trusts.

The Pensions Regulator has had a busy summer in Brighton, combing through pages of applications for authorisation from around 40 master trusts.

We have seen several of the smaller master trusts gracefully exit the marketplace.

It has been reassuring that, to date, there have not been any of these smaller master trusts that have failed to find another scheme to take on their members.

This had been flagged by some as a potential risk, so it is encouraging that it hasn’t come to fruition.

The landscape that has started emerging over these summer months sets a high bar for standards, which is very welcome in the DC space, and arguably overdue.

We are now looking at a clearer DC master trust market, in which core areas such as financial stability, governance, and systems and processes have had to evidence a credible standard.

The market has moved out of its adolescence and has grown up.

We are entering the next phase of its life - supervision by The Pensions Regulator.

The PMI is supporting this continued evolution via our master trust working group.

This is a group of over 25 organisations across the industry, which aims to provide a collective voice for those running master trusts and for their service providers.

As the industry enters the era of master trust supervision, it is as important as ever that a strong forum exists for collaborating in this way to make sure the market goes from strength to strength.

Share Story: