Fewer than one in five retirement savers aged 55+ who accessed a defined contribution pension in the last four years had a telephone or face-to-face appointment with Pension Wise, new research published by the FCA shows.
Its flagship Financial Lives research showed 18% had a Pension Wise session, a very small increase from 15% in 2020 despite interventions to boost take-up. 13% of those accessing pensions had a telephone appointment with a Pension Wise specialist and 5% a face-to-face appointment. The numbers may reflect a switch to telephone appointments when face-to-face sessions were halted during the pandemic.
Pension Wise is the core protection in place since 2015 to help consumers by giving them specialist support when making the very complex decisions about how best to access their pensions.
Stephen Lowe, group communications director at retirement specialist Just Group, commented: “We are still waiting to see the impact of the ‘stronger nudge’ but the results from the trial suggest the approach will prove to be too timid.
“The government keep rejecting proposals to test the impact of an automatic appointment pilot. But they and the FCA are pursuing no other meaningful activities to drive up Pension Wise usage. They’ve given up and are out of ideas as the data from the FCA illustrates. Should we conclude they appear content that pensions savers do not mitigate the risks they face?”
