May 2024

How Hidden Costs Undermine Public Pensions in the US

 By Richard Ennis Public pension plans in the US incur exorbitant asset management costs. Most spend a lot and get nothing for it. High cost has hindered efforts to realize their actuarial return requirement. It has resulted in poor performance pretty much across the board. And yet, very few plans provide a full accounting of the costs they incur. Some still fail to net all their investment expenses from the returns they report. High cost is the Achilles heel of...

March 2021

U.S. Participants don’t know what is happening to their fees

A survey finds nearly three-quarters of Americans don’t know how much they pay in retirement plan fees, while the ‘401k Averages Book’ shows fees continue to come down. Nearly three-quarters of Americans surveyed do not know how much they pay in fees for their retirement accounts, according to a survey commissioned by investment management firm Rebalance. More than half of survey respondents (57%) indicated they believe that they pay either no fees, or very low fees, to maintain their retirement investment...

August 2018

UK. Pensions dashboard to be debated in Parliament

“The dashboard really needs to happen if the government wants people to save enough for a decent retirement income. We can’t stop pensions being confusing and a turn off but we can make it easier to get all the information in one place and that would surely help. "The practical difficulties are not to be underestimated and occupational schemes are struggling to improve their own data quality. However, if the risks are to be transferred to individuals then we have...

UK. Pension transfers could cost members £2,600 over expected lifetime

Pension members choosing to transfer out of their employer’s scheme could receive an income that is £2,600 lower over their expected lifetime, according to research by XPS Pensions Group. The report, Member Outcomes Under Freedom and Choice, published today (7 August 2018), looks at data on defined benefits (DB) scheme transfers, collated by XPS Administration over the period since 2016. The research also found: Depending on the choice of retirement vehicle chosen to receive a transfer, an individual could run out of...