Wednesday 22 January 2014

I Hate Bland

An excellent article from Robin Ellison in Pensions World says that ‘rules trying to cap costs are almost certain to have adverse unintended consequences by squeezing out competition from start ups, adding further regulatory and compliance costs, and moving costs to less transparent elements of the system.’

Sad but true.

I’m all for reducing costs, but to start to rule on it simply leads to bland same-as investment choices and large anonymous pension schemes.

Or, as Robin suggests, the costs get hidden, becoming less transparent in an age when we are trying to promote clarity.

There has to be room for alternative approaches. And those alternatives come at a cost. There will be small employers who are happy to carry more cost in order to provide a pension plan that is tailored for their staff. Higher costs to the member may well be outweighed by more generous contributions from the employer than would be the case were he to simply ‘abandon’ his staff to one of the big providers. Big providers can be a recipe not just for low costs but average service. And less interest from the member.

There will also be employers that want to offer genuinely different investment choices for what may be a particularly savvy financial group of employees.

To rule against these things in pursuit of low costs is to limit the market, reduce the choice and promote a generation who remain apathetic about pensions. Regulated low costs will lead to a bland pensions market.

And I hate ‘bland’.

No comments:

Post a Comment