News in brief – 6 September

- Now Pensions is gearing up for a road trip around the UK to raise awareness of retirement savings, as it has been named a partner sponsor of the 2019 Pension Awareness Campaign campervan.

The provider hopes to educate people up and down the UK about the importance of saving for their retirement– and the huge disparity between male and female pension pots. Advisers will join experts from Pension Geeks, DWP and Pension Wise onboard the campervan and be on hand to offer advice and answer questions from locals.

- Scottish Widows has launched its standard annuity to the open market, to sit alongside its existing enhanced annuity.

The insurer has also created a new annuity calculator pricing tool which responds quickly to market pricing changes, therefore providing advisers with the most up-to-date quotes to offer their clients.

The standard annuity is available directly from Scottish Widows and via a number of third-party portals, such as Iress, Ipipeline, Annuity Exchange, Retirement Line, Tomas, and Synaptic Webline. Hargreaves Lansdown will continue to only offer the enhanced version.

- Cardano has announced its appointment as fiduciary manager for six schemes over the course of 2018. The mandates include: The Calor Group Retirement Benefits Plan; The Amcor UK Pension Plan; The Kingston Communications Pension Schemes; The Drax Power Group of the ESPS; The UPM-Kymmene UK Pension Scheme; and A scheme for a leading French insurer.

Independent third-party evaluators, including KPMG, EY, Barnett Waddingham and two other intermediaries, assisted these schemes with their competitive selection exercises. These mandates have contributed c.£1.5bn to Cardano’s UK total AUM which now stands at over £11bn as at 31 August 2019. For these mandates, Cardano will work with the trustee directors to achieve the Schemes’ and sponsoring employers’ funding objectives.

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