The Pensions Administration Standards Association has announced that UK Power Networks has become the second organisation to earn PASA reaccreditation, following them being presented with their certificate at PASA’s first annual event on Monday. PASA executive director Fergus Clarke said earning the PASA Glod mark is “just one step in an ongoing journey to achieving a consistently high standard of administration across the industry”.

The Mothercare pension scheme has joined Aries Insight’s Pensions Club. Mothercare interim head of pensions Peter White said Aries has shown the ability to simplify the ever changing regulatory landscape, which is invaluable for them in their commitment to running the scheme effectively for their members. Aries director Ian Neale said: “With another wave of legislatory change last year and the ever-present threat of more to come, trustees need more than ever to stay on top of how this affects their schemes.”

H2O has launched the Fidelio, a long-short equity fund which aims to generate an absolute return of 5 per cent p.a. over a recommended 3-year investment horizon. The funds objective is to keep volatility below that of global equity markets within this timeframe. It will also seek to exhibit a low correlation to the major global equity market indices. To this end, the fund will take both long and short positions, mainly on economic sectors and listed companies.

Talbot and Muir has expanded the process it uses to capture data when setting up a new SSAS. This is in direct response to the changes that HMRC has implemented and is designed to make the process as straightforward as possible for advisers and their clients. HMRC has stepped up the due diligence it is carrying out in respect of registration requests for the establishment of new SSAS in light of concerns that these types of arrangements are being used as vehicles to facilitate pension liberation. It seems clear that the additional information and documents requested by HMRC are to ensure as far as possible that all schemes registered by them are “bona fide” arrangements.

The RESAVER Pension Fund, the pan-European multi-employer occupational defined contribution (DC) pension fund for research employees, has now gone live. It has been granted authorisation by the Belgian regulator, Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), as well as local regulatory approval to operate with Hungary and Italy. RESAVER Pension fund is expected to receive funds on 1 March 2017 from its first members. The fund was formally incorporated in July 2016 as an Organisation for Financing Pensions (OFP) – an IORP under Belgian Law – with three founding members – Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, Central European University and Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium (CERIC-ERIC). Its governance structure has been designed to work on a multi-employer, multi-country basis and it takes into account the applicable social and labour legislation in each country.

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