In its response to the Treasury consultation on a new post Brexit financial services regulatory framework (which closes 9 February), Aegon has called out the need for the DWP’s pension-related regulatory changes to be brought into the Government’s Regulatory Initiatives Grid. Aegon believes this is necessary to paint a full picture of the regulatory burden facing the pensions industry. It also hopes this will lead to greater alignment between DWP and FCA pension regulations, avoiding unnecessary differences between contract and trust based pensions which confuse members and add to costs.
Steven Cameron (pictured), Pensions Director at Aegon said:
“Government and regulators recognise there’s a huge amount of regulatory change facing the financial services industry and their recently introduced Regulatory Initiatives Grid is designed to show all of this together, allowing all parties to monitor the overall regulatory burden on firms. The Grid includes initiatives from many sources including the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Prudential Regulatory Authority, HM Treasury and the Pensions Regulator.
“However, surprisingly, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is not included in the Grid which creates a glaring gap when it comes to assessing the regulatory burden faced by the pensions industry. This means there’s no visibility in the Grid of initiatives such as the review of automatic enrolment, simpler pension statements, the pension season or changes to the statutory right to transfer. The Treasury’s review of the post-Brexit financial services regulatory framework is designed to make improvements and is an ideal opportunity to remedy this.”
