You may be approaching your state retirement age, but might be thinking that you do not actually need to take this money.  Perhaps you do not need the income, or you might be planning to carry on working or earning after that period.  If you do not need to take the State pension, then you [...]

Read more of "Delaying the state pension"

The way you access financial advice on investment and pension products is changing dramatically from the start of 2013.  Here is a summary of the changes, known as the Retail Distribution Review.  More importantly, we have outlined why this is important to you if you receive financial advice. What is changing? Clearer charges From the [...]

Read more of "Financial Advice is changing"

From December 2012 an EU directive will come into force which will have implications for you if you plan to retire from your pension schemes after this date.  From this date it will no longer be possible to base retirement annuity income rates on gender, as this is seen as discriminatory. At the moment an [...]

Read more of "Pension annuities and the EU gender directive"

Here is a brief summary of how today’s budget has affected you and your financial planning: Income tax The top rate of income tax will be cut to 45% from April 2013.  This affects those earning over £150,000 per year. The personal allowance will rise to £9,205 from April 2013, meaning lower paid can earn [...]

Read more of "How the budget affects your financial planning"

Today marks the 3rd anniversary since the Bank of England reduced the base rate of interest rates to its historical low of 0.5% in the UK. They reaffirmed this decision today. This has got us to thinking about how this has affected us, and what the implications could be for the future.  We will hopefully [...]

Read more of "What 3 years of low interest rates means for you"