The PLSA has launched a new paper, Building an environment of trust in pensions, highlighting actions the industry can take to win back trust in sector.

The paper recommends that trust can be built by listening to savers, having honest conversations, increasing transparency and offering realistic expectations.

It also states that savers should be treated as adults and not patronised, that the member experience should be considered and to trust savers so that they will trust the industry in turn. Being competent, delivering results and quickly righting wrongs is also suggested.

Launching the paper at the PLSA Annual Conference, PLSA chair Richard Butcher said: “We all want better retirement incomes for all. And trust in the pensions and lifetime savings system is vital if we are to achieve that objective.

"Trust oils the wheels of the saving journey. From savers trusting us to auto enrol them into savings schemes that represent value to money to savers trusting us to make investment decisions with their best interests in mind as their savings accumulate. To savers trusting at a very basic level that their pension will pay out when they get to retirement.

“Without trust there is a risk that members will opt out. That members will pay inadequate contributions. Risk that they will not engage with us. Not talk to us so that they will lack the info they need to make the critical decisions they have to make during their savings journey. Any of these could easily result in the saver being left with inadequate retirement income and could result in an increase in pensioner poverty.”

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