Videos

Hi, I'm Judith Casey,
from a Standard Life's Investment Solutions team.

Here at Standard Life, our funds fail into two categories,
our Packaged and Bespoke Choices.

Our Packaged Choices are ready made, multi-asset funds, that take the hassle out of building
and managing portfolios, freeing you up
to focus on guiding your clients
through their investment journey. 

Our Bespoke Choices allow you to build tailored portfolios
for your client if you prefer this approach.
First, let's look at Packaged Choices.
We believe in diversified multi-asset investments at the core of any portfolio.
We have three different ranges of Packaged Funds.
Our Global Index funds, 
With underlying funds managed by Vanguard,
comprised of five funds passively managed
that take a market cap weighted approach
to equity and bond investing.

Each is highly diversified
and aims for a fixed allocation to equltitles and bonds,
rebalanced regularly ensuring allocations don't drift.

Our MyFolio range are, again, highly diversified,
multi-asset funds managed to strict volatility bands.

The range comprises of MyFolio Active,
which are actively managed by Aberdeen
and the popular MyFolio Market Range just as diversified,
but are predominmantly passively managed funds
from Vanguard and Aberdeen.

Our Target Retirement Funds,
commonly known as lifestyle funds,
are designed for pre-retirement clients
to effortlessly de-risk the closer your client
gets to retirement 

Next, let's look at the four categroies under Bespoke Choices
Lower risk options include money market deposits
appealing to risk adverse investors.
Vanguard Index Funds provides you
with all the major equity regions and bond sectors
to build a diversified portfolio at an affordable cost,
with the added confidence in Vanguard's record of delivering performance in line with the indices they track.

ESG Focus Funds take a sustainable approach to investing and have a sustainable criteria built into them. 
These funds fell under Article 8 and 9 of SFDR.

Finally, Specialist Investments allow you to hand pick funds 
and includes the life of smaller companies and property.

as well as stock trade, our self-directed platform 
where you can select individual shares and bonds for your client.

For our full range of investment choices,
see the Fund Centre, 
But also see our adviser website
for end-to-end adviser supprot and tips.

 
 

The Investment Proposal Tool
allows you to create detailed, bespoke investment propsals
for your clients in minutes.
The tool can be accessed via our Adviser website
under Online Services or Business Support.

First, enter the client neame.
Then select the product.
For example, Synergy PRSA.
Select single or regular premium.
100,000 euro for the single premium,
and 6,000 euro per year.
Next, select the Standard Life funds
to be included in the protfolio. 
Based on conversation with your client,
you should have an idea of which funds to select.
See our Fund Centre if you want information on our funds.

Start typing the name of the fund,
and the full name will auto-populate.

I want the Global Index Fund 60.
As I type, every fund with global appears.

The AMC for the fund will also appear.
Add in other funds needed.
Maximum amount is 10.
And enter the percentage. 
If you make a mistake and the amount doesn't add to 100%,
you won't be able to continue until the total equals 100%,
The tool calculates what the blended AMC of the portfolio is
based on the above percentages entered.
Next, you enter the net allocatio for the portfolio.
You should already know
what charging structure you are taking,
but if you are not familiar,
see our adviser product summary guide.
I'm choosing a 100% net allocation, 
and the investmnet amount automatically updates
to reflect this.

In the last part of section one, we select the charges,
enter the rebate and FBRC being applied.
If you don't enter any value in these fields,
it won't let you continue.

If you are not applying any rebate or FBRC,
you need to enter zero in each of these fields.

You have the option to include additional expenses in the report.

This is used to caculate
the total expense ratio for the portfolio.

Click Continue to move to the next section.
This section lets you select the period of the performance
to be shown in the reports.
For this particular fund, 
the perforance goes back 10 years,
but you could also select 7,5 or 3 years.

This graph shows an investment of 100,000 euro over 10 years in this portfolio.
If you are happy with this,you can continue. 
If not, you can change the period.
CLick Continue.
Now you can select
and deselect sections to be included in the report.
For example, if you feel discrete performance isn't needed,
you can deselect it and it won't appear in the report.
You can personalise your report
with your company's name, your name,
and your logo, which can be sized to your preference.

You can also include an optional welcome note.
For example, a summary of the client meeting and/or an optional sign-off note
to perhaps include your company registration number from the Central Bank.

You can choose to remember these details for future use.
Finally, click Create report,
and then simply save it to your PC.
As you can see, the report is very comprehensive and customer-friendly,
including many graphs and charts.

 

Hi, I'm Ruairi McDonald,
Investment Development Manager with Standard Life,
and welcome to an introduction
to our Vangurad index funds.
We offer a range of individual Vanguard Index funds,
that offer you access to company shares and 
bonds from around the world

This is in addition to our multi-asset globla index funds,
which are made up of some of these Vanguard index funds.

Index funds can be cost-efficient way of investing,
as they track the performance of a bond
or a stock market index.
A good example of a stock market index
is the S&P 500 in the US.

The funds aim to deliver investment returns in line
with the index that they track
before any charges are applied.
With these funds, you can invest across global government
or corporate bonds,
or global company shares,
typically at a lower cost than actively managed funds,
which are designed to outper form bond or stock market index.
These funds track well recognised, 
broadly diversified market indices,
like the MSCI World,
which tracks the performance of over 1,500
of the world's largest company shares.

We have a comprehensive range of equity
and bond funds in the Vanguard index suite.

Your financial adviser can build your own portfolio
using our Vanguard index funds.
They can also share detailed investmnet proposals with you
to see what a portfolio
of these funds may look like for you.
Standard Life has a long standing relationship with Vanguard
that stretches back over 10 years.

They're how the second largest fund manager in the world,
helping over 50 milion clients in 170 countries.

Founded in the US,
They are a very well respected investment manager
and a pioneer in the index investing space.

Discover which Vanguard index funds suit you best on our website.
To invest, speak to your financial advisor,
or contact Standard Life directly.

Hi , I'm Ruairi McDonald
and I'm Standard Life's Investment Development Manager.
If you have money to invest, whether it's for a pension
or a lump sum investment,
It's often hard to know which is the right fund for you.
Our packaged funds, MyFolio Market aims to make that choice a little bit easier.
It's a range of risk targeted multi-asset funds.
There are five My Folio Market funds to choose from.
Each fund has a different level of risk,
from the lower risk MyFolio Market one,
through to the higher risk MyFolio Market five.
Each fund is designed with the aim of maximising potential investment returns
for your chosen level of risk.
Each MyFolio Market fund invests in a range of index funds
with a conbination of lower-rosk assets,
such as cash and bonds and higher-risk assets,
sucah as company shares.

The combinations is a different for each MyFolio Market fund.
So for example, MyFolio Market one,
will hold fewer higher-risk assets
and more lower-risk assets.
While MyFolio Market five, will hold more higher-risk assets and fewer lower-risj assets.
Once you've invested your money, you can be confident that these funds are regularly monitored 
and rebalanced to ensure that the funds stays within the appropriate risk level 
and that the objective of each fund is being met.

The funds in each MyFolio Market fund are managed by world leadning asset managers,
Aberdeen and Vanguard ensuring your investments are in expert hands.
You can invest in MyFolio Market funds,
through Standard Life's range of pensions, savings, and investmnet products.
And if your circumstances change,
It's easy to switch between the five funds.
Find out which MyFolio Market fund may suit you best by using our online risk profiler on our website.
To invest, speak to your financial advisor or contact Standard Life directly. 
 

Hi, I'm Ruairi McDonald With Standard Life.
Welcome to an introduction to our Globla Index Funds.
These are a range of five ready-made multi-asset funds that offer a diversified portfolio of investments
made of different combinations of company shares and bonds.
By offering a choice of five funds, you can chooses a fund that aims to align with your risk tolerance
and investmnet goals.
Imagine having access to thousand of global shares and bonds diversified across all major regions, countries,
and industries, all within a single investment fund.
Each Global Index Fund is managed
to maintain a fixed asset mix
between company shares and bonds.
This mix between shares and bonds is regularly rebalanced within each fund to ensure a consistent mix of
investmnets into the future.
These funds are designed to be accessible with an annual management charge of less than 1%.
The exact cost can be discussed with your financial advisor.
Now, let's look at the Global Index 60 in more detail.
The fund typically invests in over 17,000 individual securities.
That's a real diversification in a single fund.
Approximately 60% of the fund invests in a portfolio of company shares across developed and emerging markets.
The remaining 40% is carefully invested in a spread of global government and corporate bonds.
The Global Index Fund 60 is continuously rebalanced,
ensuring a consistent 60% company shares,
40% bonds ratio. 
Our Global Index Funds truely are globally diversified, affordable funds and you have the added confidence
that the underlying funds managed by Vanguard have consistently delivered on their objectives
of delivering long-term investment returns
in line with investment markets.
Discover which Globalc index fund suits you on our website.
To invest, speak to your financial advisor or contact Standard Life directly.

There are three significant challenges facing the world today. The first is climate change, and we know a lot about climate change.

The second is these rising inequalities, the gap between the haves and the have-nots. 
And the third is the fact that we are consuming at an unprecedented rate. So this world is eating into its natural resources. 

Responsible investments for us is about the holistic understanding if environmental, social, governance issues. 

Instead of just looking at financials, investors need to think about these significant global trends and shifts. And they need to think about how these things affect the underlying investments they make. 

Sustainable business and business innovation is a great help in terms of solving some of the world’s challenges. 

Younger generations are coming in, and they don’t want to see the planet being destroyed through their investments.

They want to see something that generates both a positive outcome as well as financial return. 

People with innovative ideas and solutions that can address some of significate challenges will be better places to  
A.    Make money and return money to shareholders, and 
B.    Help society and the environment in which we live.

In order to solve these challenges, it can’t just be left up to investments. Investors also need a very clear framework in which to operate. 

So we need governments to think about how they regulate. We need civil society to play a role and in fact, plastics in a great example of how civil society has just said “This is unacceptable. We want change” and how governments have responded very quickly.

My core belief is that technology has been the game changer. Campaigns, social media, social media campaigns, have really raised awareness of environmental issues for modern gas companies, for access to medicine issues with pharmaceutical companies, business ethics issues when it comes to finance and banking and people are realising that companies have a very big role to play in the state of our world. 

Having spent 20 years in this industry and starting off in a dusty corner begging to be let out, we’re now at the forefront of thinking about all allocation of capital in a very different way than we were 20 years ago. 

And I would like to think that environmental and social issues have just become a natural part of understanding how you allocate your capital in a way that will benefit your ultimate beneficiaries who are investing in your pension fund right through to making sure that we have a planet to live on in 30 years time.  
 

In order to solve the climate problem, the world needs to invest something like $2tn a year in renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, and a range of other new technologies. 
The good news is in the last 10 years we have started to make some progress.  And today we’re investing globally something like $500bn dollars a year, which sounds like a lot, but it’s well under half what we need to be doing and unfortunately with climate change, we need to be acting really fast. 
I think on of the things that we’re going to need in order to accelerate the transition is more specialised investment vehicles. 
The cost of renewable energy has fallen 90% in the last decade or so the ability to expand capacity is growing quickly. 
We’re now working with our pension fund clients to show them how they can apply these sorts of subtle changes to portfolio construction to get a little bit more capital flowing to the low-carbon space. 
I think a lot of pension fund trustees have kind of thought about ethical investment and said,
“Well, we have to invest for the interest of our beneficiaries.  We can’t make ethical decisions. Therefore, we can’t do that.”
The difference here with climate change is we’re saying, “It isn’t about the ethics. This is about investment returns.” 
We think, because of the changes that are happening in the world economy, you can actually make more money by shifting your portfolio. 
The strategic asset allocation framework, which we’re developing, provides our clients with a way to do that, to kind of give them comfort that they’re still going to be delivering returns but at the same time allocating more capital to clean energy. 
We’re seeing financial regulators put more and more pressure on the big investment institutions to move forward on this. 
And I think that will be a very healthy step forward. The whole industry needs to kind of ensure that when we do our forecasts for returns and think about our long-term portfolios, we take account of these issues and think about how they affect the returns we’re going to get from our investments in the future. 
 

How can ESG Investment help deliver better long-term returns?

The world is facing serious challenges.

From climate change to depleting resources.

From social inequality to question over corporate responsibility. Amid these challenges, people are increasingly recognising the role that investing has on the world around us.

And that the investments we make today can determine the world we live in tomorrow.

At Aberdeen Standard Investments we strongly believe that environmental, social and governance – or ESG – factors sit at the heart of good investing helping to deliver better long-term investment results while reducing exposure to downside risk along the way.

In equities, we act as active shareholders, exercising all voting rights and engaging with management to encourage best practice.

In fixed income, ESG risks are assessed and priced alongside other credit risks while we encourage action for this risk to be improved.

 And in real estate, ESG considerations help us select and mange assets so we can optimise long-term performance for investors.

We also offer focused sustainability approaches to meet ethical, socially responsible and thematic investment goals.

Through the collaboration of our fund managers and ESG specialists by sharing insight across markets and ongoing engagement with companies, governments and stakeholders we seek to be active stewards of every investment we make and a global leader in ESG investment.

Protecting and enhancing the value of our client’s assets and contributing every day to a fairer and more sustainable world.

[Opening Remarks]

Good morning and thank you all for joining me. I'm Tara John, Head of Engagement here in Standard Life, and this morning I'm joined by Johanna Cody, our Brand and Communications Manager.

Good morning. Over the course of our spring series, you have had the chance to experience three of our pillars of retirement specialism: retirement solutions, investment solutions, and this morning we're going to cover our Second Life.

In case you've missed the previous webinars, they are available on our website and we will send out the CPD certs in time when we receive them. We hope over the course of the series you've gotten to know us at Standard Life a little bit better. We do hope we've provoked you. We've given you some thoughts and ideas to help you with the challenges your business is facing.

And of course, it doesn't end with the spring series. We'd love to hear more from you. So please pick up the phone—colleague, business manager—get in touch with any of us on the investment solutions, the retirement solutions, or the Second Life team. We'd love to talk about this.

To wrap up this spring series, Johanna and I are going to talk about Second Life. We're going to share our philosophy, the concepts, the content, and we're hopefully going to give you some ideas to take away to work within your business.

I have lots of questions this morning and I hope you guys do too. So please remember the Q&A function. Drop your questions in there and we'll get to them later this morning.

[Introduction to Second Life]

So to kick us off, Johanna, please, for anybody who isn't as familiar with Second Life as you and I, remind us—what's it about?

Yeah. What is Second Life?

Second Life is very simply how we, as Standard Life, speak about retirement. You know, we're a life savings company specialized in retirement. And even we know that as a topic it can get people switched off. And as an industry, we're concerned about the engagement rates people have with their retirement planning.

And so we set about a few years ago thinking of a way that we could tackle this and do something a little bit different in this space. And that's where we decided to reframe retirement—not as a milestone way down the road that you aim for—but as something more. That's an ongoing transition that you plan for over time.

Because people, I suppose, they're not doing enough, they're not thinking enough about their future selves. But why might that be?

So we delved into the years and years of experience Standard Life has—all retirement insights. You know, Tara, we've been tracking attitudes and behaviours around retirement in Ireland for nearly 15 years now. So we have this wealth of research to pull from—and we did.

And it helped us come up with two fundamentals around the Second Life platform.

[The Two Fundamentals of Second Life]

The first fundamental was making it about the people. We could talk about pensions and investment decisions all day long, but that's not what engages people. That's probably part of the problem. And you know, there is time for those conversations, of course, but at a much higher level, we wanted to bring people into the thought of retirement planning.

And we do that by looking at the human side of money and looking more at the outcome of the savings—the reason why people save, what they can experience on the other side of that saving.

The second fundamental for us was trying to build an emotional connection between people and their retirement savings. And we know that as people in the industry, we have strong belief and are advocates for pension saving. But I suppose if everyone thought as logically as us, there'd be no need for auto-enrollment. Everyone would be starting early and making adequate contributions. People aren't as logical as all that.

People are much more emotional, and they need that emotional connection in order to get interested in a topic and also to drive them and motivate them to do something about it.

And we can see again in our research where the emotional and the logical come together nicely. Because we ask kind of more logical questions, but also those more emotive questions on how people feel about retirement and about retirement savings. And we see that people who save for their retirement have a happier retirement—which makes sense—but actually they're also happier as they're saving. Which I think just goes to show how emotional and logical can link together and drive people to save and take action.

[Engaging People in Retirement Conversations]

Let’s say that you're a communications expert, OK? So share with the audience—how do we get people to engage in the topic that they're just not ready for? We know that pensions and retirement planning is not at the point for most of the clients we need to speak with. How do we use our communications skills to bring it to the fore?

Yeah. Well, I think a lot of communications comes from understanding, first of all. So we needed to move from just reframing and renaming retirement into more of a journey of understanding how people experience retirement and then how Standard Life can support advisors and clients along that journey.

Looking at the journey to retirement, we've identified three retirement-ready indicators that really feed into whether we are going to have the best Second Life for them. And these are being financially, emotionally, and mentally prepared for retirement.

The financial conversations—obviously advisors are having these already day in and day out. And that's really your area of expertise. But I'd be surprised if you're not already veering into the more holistic conversation around social and mental preparedness as well. And if you are, that's great. We're big believers in it. But if you're not, that's OK because we've created a suite of tools, content, and collateral to support those conversations.

[Three Pillars of Second Life]

We do this under three pillars of Second Life, which are: End of Career Guidance, Better with Age, and our Women and Pensions activity.

So that’s two lists of three—with three retirement readiness indicators: whether you're financially prepared for retirement, whether you're socially connected (and we will talk about these a little bit later), and the last one is whether you're mentally prepared or you're going to stay purposefully busy.

So how people score on those indicators tells us that they're ready for retirement—that's number one. And the second part is back to the whole idea of Second Life: trying to build those emotional connections with your future self, which can be hard to do when I'm very busy living with my current self.

Storytelling is hugely important. We all love a good story in Ireland, so how we communicate Second Life is through stories. And there are three key stories we tell. One of the stories is End of Career Guidance. The second story is Better with Age. And the last story is Women and Pensions.

[End of Career Guidance]

Take us back through some of those stories. Let's start with End of Career Guidance.

Yeah. Sure. End of Career Guidance—I think it's one of those things that you're surprised it makes so much sense, you're surprised no one thought of it sooner. And they didn’t. We've been fortunate to get there and bring Ireland’s first End of Career Guidance Counsellor to the market.

And who better to have than a school guidance counsellor who had all those skills and could really see the link between what it's like to transition from the structure and routine of school life into the unknown of your future career—versus what it's like at the end of your career, going from all that structure into what can be the unknown.

So we brought Brian Mooney on board, and I'm going to play a short video now just to introduce Brian to some of you or maybe reacquaint him with others.

“I worked with students for 43 years of my life. I was their guidance counsellor. It was incredibly fulfilling, helping each of them figure out what they were interested in, what their strengths were, helping them discover a career path with their purpose in life. What about those at the other end of their career? Not everyone knows what they want to do when they retire. That’s my job.”

So yeah, as Brian said there, he has this wealth of experience from his career. But actually, Brian transitioned from being a first-lifer to a second-lifer during his work with us. And so we brought that experience too.

As he said, it’s about seeing what’s needed to face that transition, to face it well, to be prepared for it—knowing your interests, knowing your passions, and how to pivot your skills into taking your best Second Life. And it can be a bumpy ride, whether you're starting out at 17 or 18, or at the end of your career and moving into your Second Life. So having a guide can really help. And that’s where we brought Brian in.

[Brian Mooney’s Role and Tools]

Brian’s great—whether it’s on radio interviews, client events, or even our Retirement Chats videos. He’s great at helping people to make plans, to visualize their lives in retirement, and to just really get that preparation in place.

In particular, in the Retirement Chat videos that he did with us, he spoke to retirees—real retirees—about their lived experience, about their journey and what they learned. And you know, even some of the struggles that they had. Having that suite of videos for people to watch and learn from, to kind of see maybe what it might look like ahead for them, what to be more aware of—that’s really valuable.

Those Retirement Chat videos are on our website on standardlife.ie, our Retirement Hub. So I really recommend giving them a watch and sharing them with clients.

And while you're there, you'll see we have a really useful tool—and definitely one of Brian’s favourite tools to bring into client meetings—it’s our Second Life Questionnaire. We've been using this for a number of years now at many client events, and even some advisors have been lucky enough to fill it out with us too.

The questionnaire is a set of questions that just opens people up to visualizing their life in retirement—the day-to-day, the week-to-week, what that really looks like. And it’s a tool for self-reflection and visualization. It just helps clients set their own expectations, map their own journey, and it really just eventually helps them smooth that transition into their Second Life.

[Client Reactions to the Questionnaire]

I think it was. And I think we've been surprised at client events where we've left them out and we've asked people, “Take 15 minutes, have a go and fill this out.” And it’s funny enough when you see the pain in their face when they struggle with some of these questions. And it just shows and validates the need for this—because they’re questions that we just haven’t thought of yet.

And what we encourage people to do is have a go at it—bring it home, share it with your other half if they’re not in the room with you at the time, and come back to it.

I filled mine out when I started in this particular role two years ago, and in preparation for this morning’s webinar, I thought, “Gee, I’ll go back and have a look.” And already my opinion has changed on some of what I want to achieve in my retirement. So it’s definitely not a one-and-done. It’s one to come back to from time to time. And I just think it’s beautifully simple.

Yeah, that’s it. And that really is the strength of End of Career Guidance. It’s about putting pen to paper and charting the unknown—just taking that first step.

[Better with Age Campaign]

For our second pillar then, which is part of the Better with Age campaign, we took a very different angle on retirement—but again, a very simple one. It’s about celebrating the joy of living your best Second Life.

We worked with Sonia Lennon, who is our Second Life mentor. And as she says, retirees are the new rock stars. They’re living life on their own terms, and they’ve all the benefits of a life of experience behind them. They’re facing into a Second Life that’s just going to get better and better with age. And so it’s a real privilege to be able to celebrate that for people.

I think so, and I think it goes again back to the research and the insights that we were carrying as we talked to people. A lot of the feedback from people that were close to and just into retirement—they were kind of sick of how retirement was being portrayed. They’re actually fed up with the word “retirement.” So again, we need to think about how we use that word.

My mum is 76, and in a conversation last week I said something about being an old age pensioner, and she looked around and said, “Who are you talking about?” Because she just does not identify with that label.

So I think it’s that they were fed up with it being grey—talking about health issues and things. And the other side of retirement often is golfing on a yacht, travelling. And while they are important breaths of that golden phase, it’s not everything. So I think we needed to look at it again.

And a lot of the Retirement Chats—they celebrate the really simple. They celebrate the everyday moments. They celebrate just the achievement of a life of working, saving, planning, and how we got there. So it is fantastic to be able to celebrate that.

[Better with Age – Continued]

Yeah, it’s really important to celebrate it. You know, it’s all industries like this. And if you don’t believe that and if you don’t want to celebrate that, I think you’re in the wrong industry.

And we brought Better with Age to life in two ways. The first was our ad campaign that promotes not only celebrating the joy of retirement but also promotes planning and the need for a little bit of preparation and foresight to achieve that joy the right way.

We met with Dickie Williams, who makes Cooley cheddar cheese and works down in the Cooley Peninsula. We went down to speak to him about maybe, you know, is there an analogy there between the preparation, the maturing over time of a fine cheddar versus preparing for your retirement?

And it’s when he talks about the process that he has—the care he puts in, the kind of trusted guidance he has to provide to the cheese, and then the finished article and the outcome and getting to enjoy that—we thought it was a perfect analogy for retirement.

I think so, and I think Dickie explained that he didn’t get it right the first time. He had to go back and he had to craft his skill. And I think it’s the same with retirement planning. Clients may have a plan on ice that needs course correction. They need to meet with the financial advisor again to see—cost of living is rising, and I’m going to be longer in retirement than I thought. So where’s my advocacy at?

And then even just our goals and our hopes and our dreams for retirement—the closer we get to the milestone, why, they change. And sometimes they become a better, more simple day-to-day. So I do think Dickie taught us a lot about planning and preparation.

[Better with Age – Retirement Chats Videos]

Yeah, absolutely. We did another set of Retirement Chats videos as well as part of Better with Age—so with both Brian Mooney and Sonia Lennon. And this time around, we had six retirees come into a room and all speak together about their experience.

We did this very purposefully because we wanted our Retirement Chats to inspire conversations—to get the conversation around retirement planning up and running. And we saw when people entered the room, they came from different backgrounds, they retired in different circumstances. One of them didn’t know where to start telling their story. But as they sat and discussed it with each other, they inspired each other. The stories were definitely flowing, and we were able to capture that and put it into our videos.

And I think that’s really important because we know people approach retirement in very differing ways. I myself have three recent retirees in my life, and they’ve all approached it very positively—but in different ways.

My mother has decided, luckily for me, to become a full-time granny, and she travels the length and breadth of the country helping all of us with our families. My father-in-law, who himself is actually a financial advisor, has become very active in his local community. And my mother-in-law, who’s only just retired very, very recently, is just enjoying the newfound freedom of it all.

So being able to reflect those differences in approaches—I think—is really, really important. And that’s what the Retirement Chats videos are able to do.

[The Power of Real Stories]

I think it’s surprising—by doing something as simple as watching a video online—how much it does get the conversation going. Because we saw when we shared them on social media, for example, people were commenting not only that they recognized themselves in the people speaking about retirement—they actually recognized some of the retirees as well. Because that’s the joy of using real people in all of our assets.

And it really makes that emotional connection—bringing back that emotional connection to the topic that you’re talking about.

Absolutely. It’s that shared love of storytelling and the authenticity and the fact that these people are talking about their own lives. And they’re real scenarios.

Yeah, exactly. And look—again, available on our website. I’d highly recommend: go on, have a look yourselves, share with clients. And I’d like to give you a little taste of them now. So I’m going to share a video of Anne speaking about her first day of retirement:

“Pace certainly changes. I mean, for the first time in your life, you’re not working to the clock. But the wonderful thing about retirement is it opens up all these new opportunities, and you rediscover those parts of yourself—because you are the sum of your old parts.”

Thanks, Johanna. I think Anne really nailed it there when she talks about “at your own pace.” And I think that is what we want to celebrate—you are still going to be purposefully busy. We know lots of people continue to work or they move into volunteer roles in their community and you’ve kind of a lot to give—but it’s at your own pace, which I think is one of the big celebrations of Better with Age.

Yeah, exactly. And so we’re always looking for those real nuggets of truth.

[Women and Pensions]

And so that brings me to our third pillar, which is Women and Pensions. Because the truth, as we’re all aware, is that there is a gender pension gap. And when we look at our research and some of the very real reasons for this—reasons that are facing women at different life stages—there are actually other gaps too that we need to be aware of.

There’s a gap between men and women in their confidence levels in making financial decisions. There’s also a comfort gap, where women aren’t as comfortable talking about money. And all of this is feeding into, at a societal level, women being under-engaged with retirement planning.

I think that can feel really daunting to try and tackle. I know when we speak about it, we think, “Where do we start?”

Brian was really inspired recently at an advisor event that we had. Remember Brian Haggerty, the MD of Vanguard Europe, came over to speak. And one of the stories he shared was about himself and his wife meeting with their financial advisor—a new financial planner they were working with.

At the initial meeting, Sean sat down—and look, he’s the MD of a large financial services company, and he’s very financially literate. I’m sure his portfolio was an absolute sight to behold. And he dove straight into the detail. He’s very comfortable, and he dove straight in.

And his financial planner—credit to her, and he gives her credit for this—actually asked him to take a pause and said to his wife, “What do you think? I want to bring you into the conversation. Are you comfortable with these decisions? What are your plans?”

And as Sean said, that financial planner has a customer for life in his wife now. She is recommending that financial planner to friends and family. She’s engaged. It’s those kinds of simple things, I think, that get the conversations going in the right way.

[Supporting Women in Retirement Planning]

Yes, it can feel difficult to get all women better engaged with their pensions, but we’re having these one-to-one conversations. And if you have the right understanding and empathy, I think it’s doable.

But again, Standard Life likes to offer tools and support for advisors to do that, and we do so with our online hubs. So we have two online hubs: we have one for customers around Women and Pensions, and we have one for advisors. On the hub, you’ll see lots of facts and figures, insights, recordings from previous webinars on the topic as well.

And most recently, we’ve added our podcasts to those hubs too. These podcasts, if you haven’t heard, are called The Ultimate Guide for Women and Pensions and are hosted by Sonia Lennon.

In the podcast, Sonia talks about the very real barriers that are facing women, but she does that in a really realistic, empathetic, and ultimately very actionable way—to empower women to make a small bit of change for themselves.

The podcasts are on Apple and Spotify. If you haven’t already listened, I highly, highly recommend it. I didn’t work on them directly, so I think I can be a bit objective in saying that they’re just fantastic.

I mean, I’ve always worked on pensions since I started my career, and this is the most eager I’ve been to share a piece of content with my friends outside of the industry. I really know they’re going to take something away from it. And I just really recommend, for advisors and for clients, to give them a listen too. They’re on Apple and Spotify, they’re on our website—they’re available to listen and share there.

It’s not just me who feels this way. The 6:00 Show on TV actually reached out to Sonia to invite her on to speak about the podcasts and give them a bit of a platform there too.

So I’m going to share a little snippet so you can have a taste of what Sonia discussed on the day:

“You’re not a financial expert, but you have experts on.”
“Yeah. And I talk to the people who really know their onions when it comes to pensions, who know all the ins and outs. I can’t—I think it’s not legal for me to give advice—but I know where to find it. And I think if you are tossing and turning in the middle of the night thinking, ‘I haven’t done anything about my pension,’ which so many people are—who’s your savvy friend? Who’s the one who knows the great doctor, the great hairdresser? They probably know the great financial advisor too. Go and have a chat and say, ‘Have you done anything about your pension? Who did you talk to?’ Because financial advisors now are a different breed. They’re asking you questions, they’re understanding what your needs are, and providing products that fit in with that. It’s not just about the kind of quick sell anymore. It’s moved on. It’s tailored now.”

[Recap of Second Life Framework]

Janet, thanks for taking us through Second Life. If I summarise it quickly then for the audience: Second Life is how we talk about retirement here at Standard Life. And there are two sets of three that you need to think about.

One is those retirement readiness indicators. So, are your clients ready? Are they financially prepared? Have they got a pot that’s going to see them through their retirement? Are they socially connected? We know that we make a lot of our friendships, a lot of our chats happen through work, and a lot of our identity is linked to how we work. So when we move into retirement, that can be lost. So are we thinking about that? Are we thinking about who we’re going to hang out with and spend time with when we’re in this golden phase?

And the last one is purposefully busy. A lot of people like that connection. They like the structure to their routine. So we’re just making sure that people do feel like they’re purposefully busy.

So that’s three retirement readiness indicators, and you’ll find all those statistics on our website. I’m going to share more of those in a few minutes.

The other is our storytelling—because again, with your communications hat on, it’s the best way to get people to engage in a message that they’re probably not absolutely interested in. So we’re telling stories around End of Career Guidance and how you pivot into retirement. We’re telling stories about Better with Age and how you get ready to celebrate and enjoy this milestone. And we’re telling stories about Women and Pensions to inspire more women really to engage with their pot, to engage with their retirement plan, to get involved.

Yeah, exactly.

[Audience Questions and Sharing Tools]

Perfect. And the questions are starting to roll in already. I’m just going to unlock my device. But I know that we’ve had one question about the Second Life Questionnaire.

So guys, this is available on our website. You can download it as a PDF, but we do have quite a nice print version. So please get in touch with your business manager and we can send you out the print copies if you do want to use those with your clients. And if you want to, please help us with your logo—we can co-brand these. So it’s from us, from you, to your clients. That’s the gift that keeps giving. So get in touch with your business manager if you’re interested in the Second Life Questionnaire.

The other question that’s come in, Johanna, is just a quick technical question—because this is your bread and butter and you’re very into this—but some people are still asking about how do they share the podcasts and where do they share the Retirement Chats with their clients?

Yeah, so like I said, the podcasts are on Apple and Spotify. So within the app, you can go ahead and share. There’ll be a button to share directly there, and you can copy that link into an email. You can also copy the link for our hubs online. So we’ve the Women and Pensions customer hub and we’ve the Retirement Hub as well. And you can share those links just in an email to your clients and they can go and browse those sections themselves. There’s loads and loads of content on them. So I think, you know, no harm in sharing the entire hub with people.

Perfect. Thanks, Johanna. So that’s moving us on now.

[Changing Nature of Retirement]

So I suppose I summed up maybe the way that we’ve changed how we speak about retirement—but retirement itself is changing as well. Would you be able to talk us through how you see, I suppose, how you’d group those changes?

Absolutely. Thanks, Johanna. We have a phenomenal bank of research in Standard Life, and myself and the colleagues that work in insights spend a lot of time mining those insights, mining that data to understand the trends and what’s really happening.

From that, I can see three key trends that we need to be aware of in the industry:

Retirement itself is changing.
We’re living longer lives.
We have more people turning 50 than turning 5.
So we’ve more people in the market for the service we’re providing.

I love the simplicity of those and the way you presented them. But you said we’re going to unpack what it means that it’s no longer a full stop.

Yeah, it’s not. So when I joined the industry, we were still thinking people retire at 65 and life expectancy was probably 75 to 80. So you were 10 or 15 years in that. And it was—it was so set, Johanna, that like at 65, people stood up on the floor and had a speech made about them, there was probably a few drinks, you got a watch, you got a nice gift, and it was a big celebration because it was an absolute milestone.

That’s not happening so much anymore. It’s more of a transition than a full stop.

[Retirement as a Transition]

It’s more of a transition than a full stop. We’re hearing lots of people who look to retire younger, retire older—some stopping in their 60s, others continuing into their 70s. So that’s definitely changing. And how we do it is also changing.

Years back, people used to talk about semi-retirement—“I’m semi-retired”—and that’s gone out of our vernacular. But actually, it needs to come back. Through our research, through our Retirement Chats, we’re talking to people who said in the preparation, what they did was they stepped back to three or four days a week, for example, to start living a little bit more at their own pace.

Depending on the career you’re in, if that’s an option, that’s fine. We’ve also talked to people who stopped—absolutely fully retired—and six months later they were back, busier than ever. Between the community groups, the part-time work, education—they were back, busier than ever.

So I think we need to start talking to more people about what happens in that phase, because it’s not that classic stop.

I think so. And coming back to the podcast, I know Clíona Hughes, who spoke on the podcast, said, “It’s not retiring, it’s rewiring.” And I think that’s so true.

Another thing that Clíona mentioned, though, is that she sees her role as financial advisor as being part counsellor, part teacher, and part cheerleader. But we’re not really expecting all financial advisors to be life coaches, are we?

[The Role of Financial Advisors]

No. No, no, not at all. This whole industry of life coaching—I’ve participated, I’ve found it very beneficial. So if your clients are looking for that level of support, absolutely go and recommend that they speak to a life coach.

But I think we can’t do financial planning without building up that relationship. And that’s where, for example, the “cheerleader” comes in. A lot of advisors know their clients over their lifetime. So you know when the kids were born, you’ve heard that they’ve gone to university—hopefully they’re out in the working world. So in that sense, you’re the cheerleader. You’re celebrating milestones with your clients. You’re course-correcting because now the kids are gone—hopefully there’s a little bit more to put into the pension pot and things like that. So I think that covers the cheerleader piece.

In terms of coach—we do it anyway in how we engage with people. That Second Life Questionnaire is a form of coaching. And it’s not that we’re expecting advisors to come back and discuss the questionnaire and the answers with clients. Prompting your client to fill it out is enough. You’re just nudging them to say, “We’ve done your financial plan. I think you’re on track,” or, “We need to do something different on your plan. By the way, to get ready, have a think about these other things.” And I think that’s enough. That’s a nice shortcut without taking out a full life coach.

Yeah, perfect.

[Living Longer – Financial and Social Implications]

OK. Your second point was that we’re living longer. It’s great news, but it’s going to come with challenges.

Yeah, it absolutely will. So again, if you look at the traditional retirement—it was 10 to 15 years. That’s a certain pot size. If we’re now going to live 25 and 30 years in retirement, we’re going to have to have a bigger pot. It’s as simple as that. Never mind challenges around cost of living. So we definitely need to look at the financial plan for a longer retirement.

We’re also more active—and you can’t leave the house these days without spending money, Johanna. So again, the financial plan needs to be looked at because of longer lives.

And I think there are other issues that come in—health issues. So I’m very lucky to have lots of people in my family who are in their 80s, and we’ve got a 90-year-old in the family now. So that’s really fantastic. But with that older age comes health issues. And never mind the big health challenges—it’s just the aches and creaks and the forgetfulness that comes with living a longer life. So that requires more support.

And we don’t have children, so I know that I’m probably looking at nursing homes. So part of my financial plan is trying to hedge for care into my older age. So the pot, the health care—those are all the things that we need to look at as part of longevity.

[Social Connectedness and Mental Preparation]

Social connectedness, I think, is a big part of it. So, you know, without too much planning and thinking, Johanna—you go to school, you go to work or to university, and you end up in a job. And you’re used to meeting people and introducing yourself, and you make those connections. Some are good long friendships, some are just water cooler chats. It doesn’t matter.

As you get older, you begin to lose that skill. And if you stop working and you’re out in retirement—I was at a wedding last weekend, and people automatically say, “And where do you work? What do you do?” And it’s a nice conversation starter. And when you’re retired, you’re going, “How do I introduce myself?”

So one of the things that we would do through Second Life is encourage people in their 40s and in their 50s, in the preparation of the journey to and through retirement, to start thinking about their social connectedness. Start thinking about taking up new hobbies, taking up sport, taking up some education—so that you’re continually making those new friendships. Because it’s a feeling that you’ll need well into your older age.

Yeah, absolutely.

The last one that I would mention then is about being purposefully busy or mentally prepared for retirement. It’s a lot of time. We’ve estimated that you’d get back 2,000 hours if you stop work full-time and go into full-time retirement. Coming off a full-time job with probably a little bit of overtime or commuting—2,000 hours, that’s a lot of time to start filling. So you’ve got to plan for that.

[The Importance of Planning for Time in Retirement]

On the journey to our Retirement Chats, we did hear some sad stories where people didn’t put the right plan in place—just thought, “This is going to be wonderful,” didn’t think about retirement. And on day one, they had a little bit of a moment of, “What do I do? How do I stay busy?”

I have a circle of friends who are all already retired, and I’m the only one working. And they love to meet me on a Friday night for a drink because they get to cheers to celebrate the end of the week. I’m the only one that’s working, so they need to build some more structure into their week so that they feel they justify that weekend celebration.

Yeah. Look, it all comes back to that need for preparation over time.

And you were excited about your third point—more people are turning 50 than turning 5 at the moment.

I was—because I’m part of that cohort. I’m not quite 50, guys—I’m 47—but I’m on the way. And early on, as a youngster in geography class, when we started to talk about demographics, I got interested in it. And I realised then that I was part of a baby boom. So I’m part of an age band that’s wider, if you like, in a pyramid than the guys ahead of me or the guys behind me.

So for our market, that’s huge. It means we have more people that are in the market for our services than ever before.

[Communicating with a Busy Generation]

But it also comes with a challenge—back to your communication skills. People are so busy living their first lives, they’re so busy trying to get on, they’re not thinking about it. And again, we still think 65, so it’s far away. When you’re only 47, 65 is far away.

So how do we bring it closer, and how do we make them start thinking now? And I think that’s a big challenge for our industry. We just need to raise our game, raise the conversation, and just get people thinking. You might consider it, you might walk away, you might go back to it, you might start—but we have to get people to take an action.

Yeah, I think so. And I think what can help—and definitely helps us—is looking at that machine of insights that we have, and how do we, I suppose, go about packaging off those insights for something that advisors can use themselves?

Yeah, perfect. And we spend a lot of time on research because we want to really, truly understand what’s happening for people on the ground in Ireland. We survey about 5,500 people every year. So that’s quite a depth of research. We do it through traditional surveys, paper surveys, online surveys. We support that with focus groups to get those rich stories and vignettes for the Retirement Chats. And then we do a lot of desk research.

So I believe we have a phenomenal machine behind the insights that we deliver. It’s too much for anybody to get their heads around. So what we do is distill it into, again, stories.

[Packaging Insights into Actionable Tools]

We put a lot of our research together, and every year we bring out an annual summary called Bringing Retirement into Focus. This is a summary—there’s lots more information behind it. It’s a really good booklet for advisors to read. And while we do say that it’s for financial advisors, it’s also appealing to some of your clients. So definitely think about sharing it.

Retirement is very different. It’s very different for every one of us. But we do need to kind of group it up, as you say, and package it. So one of the ways that we’ve packaged the Bringing Retirement into Focus story is through three lenses. We look at this because there are three key influences on how we’re going to retire:

1.Gender
2.Geography
3.Generation
So there are chapters in the report on each of those for people to dive into.

Yeah, brilliant. I think packaging it up in that way shows that those influences—you might expect some of them, and others might surprise you. Gender we’ve discussed. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about how gender influences our retirement?

Yeah, it does. And like you say, I mean, this is the big question about the gender part—and we’re not going to tackle that one right now. I think women have squiggly careers. They come in and out of employment, they’re giving care, raising their own kids, looking after older people—and that’s a lifestyle choice. And I don’t want to impinge on that.

The bit that we do want to work on is that confidence and engagement piece. You’ve talked about that earlier. We tapped into that about two or three years ago, really did some deep research on it, and that has given life to the Women and Pensions series and all of that content. So that’s taking care of itself.

[Geography and Retirement Experience]

Back to my secondary school geography classes—I was really interested in geography, and that began to emerge as a theme. I got really excited by it and started understanding: how does geography influence your retirement? And it does.

With all of our surveys, we’re able to roll them up and look at opinions from people in Munster versus people in Leinster. Let’s get the old classic clash out there—it’s not just rugby, it’s pension planning too!

You’re from Donegal, and I’ve recently moved back up to Laois. My mum was from Laois, and I’ve moved up there. And I think it gave both of us a real sense of pride in our locality when we read that people retiring in the northwest are the happiest across the country.

So what’s happening up there? And I’ve seen it on the ground. There’s a lot more community activity, activation, there’s a lot more involvement, there are opportunities for people to hang out with the neighbours. That social connectedness is just pre-built up there. So that’s working really well.

They’re also ahead of everybody else on the indicators. So they feel themselves that they are more financially prepared, they’re more socially connected, and they’re staying purposefully busy into retirement. I think that’s huge.

And I think we’ve enjoyed that little bit of healthy competition across the regions. Looking at people in Dublin—obviously slightly wealthier, back to my native county—there’s more money on the eastern coast. So people in Dublin are retiring with typically bigger pots, but they are the group of people that are rejecting retirement. They’re saying they’re never going to retire. They’re really happy to stay working—or some of them actually just can’t see retirement. They just can’t see that they’re going to amass the pot to enable that.

[Using Geography to Personalize Retirement Conversations]

So looking at geography—I think it’s fantastic. And it’s not just for me. I think we love to hear stories, and we love to hear stories that are more meaningful for us. So like I say, you enjoyed reading about those stories—you’ll identify with your home territory.

And I think advisors can start using that report to make it really specific to their clients. So we’re not talking about one-size-fits-all here. We’re talking about really bringing it down to the level that makes sense to clients.

Yeah, I think so.

[Generational Differences in Retirement Planning]

And the third lens, I suppose, that we look at in Bringing Retirement into Focus was generation.

Yeah, absolutely. I think—look around you guys—generation to generation, life is different.

I was down with my mum in Valentia at the weekend, and she’s 86. She is the best ever human I’ve ever come across. She’s fantastic. And she tells great stories about growing up and how life was for her. And it’s remarkably different to how I experienced growing up—and even the grandkids that were in the room. We had a lovely evening exchanging stories.

OK, so generation to generation, we know life is different. And that’s no different for our industry. So younger adults coming through now are going to have different financial plans, hopes, and dreams than I had—than my mum and her mum had.

And in this industry, we need to tap into that. We need to understand that so we can meet the younger generation where they’re at.

[Engaging Younger Generations in Financial Planning]

And I think—you just read the papers, Johanna—and you know, on the negative side for the younger generation is the struggle with the housing market. Just trying to get access to that first significant financial milestone. So they’re struggling with that.

It’s always been hard to sell a pension to a 30-year-old. It’s going to be harder if that 30-year-old doesn’t have a house. So we’re going to have to find new routes into communicating with them—to help them understand that having a pension, while it is fantastic for your retirement, actually solves a lot of worries right now.

We know people that are saving feel happier, feel more financially in control than people who aren’t. So we need to tap into the younger generation and get that message straight to them.

But the interesting quirk with Gen Z—the youngest guys we survey, the 18 to 25-year-olds—is they’re more likely than any other age cohort to identify as investors. So they’re open to this. They’re open to the idea of financial planning. And I think that if we can get the right messages, we’ll hook them in and we’ll get them thinking and starting to save early enough.

So it’s a phenomenal report. There’s a lot in it. Lisa Tobin, who works in Insights, has quite a job to try and distill all of the research down into a report that we felt was enough for advisors to read. We’ve tons more behind the scenes, so if anybody is interested, please come back, contact me—we’ll talk more about it.

We’ve had some advisors that have actually used it to write articles for their local paper. Again, back to that idea of geography and parish—we like to hear what’s happening on the ground. So guys, it’s a shortcut for you to start writing some of your content. Go and use it.

[Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up]

So I think to wrap it up, Johanna—we’ve been on a journey this morning.

We started talking about Second Life and the three readiness indicators for retirement planning: financially prepared, socially connected, and purposefully busy. The three pillars of our Second Life story—End of Career Guidance, about pivoting your skills and staying purposefully busy into that retirement; Better with Age, which deserves a celebration; and the need to get more women into pension planning.

We’ve talked about the research engine behind Standard Life—Bringing Retirement into Focus. There are copies available on the website. Guys, contact your business managers—we’ll get printed copies out. And they’re nice. They’re a really nice way to segue into that conversation.

If you feel like, “I’m a financial planner, I can handle the plan, I don’t want to get into the life-side approach”—these tools will help, absolutely, to get you there.

So get in touch, guys. We’d love to hear more.

This morning brings us to the end of the Spring Series. It’s been our pleasure to talk to you guys. In case you’ve missed it, as I said at the beginning, the webinars from Brendan at Vanguard on investment performance and outlook are available on our website. Sinead Mack from Retirement Solutions covered auto-enrolment in great detail—it was one of the webinars that carried the most questions. She’s still replying to some of those.

Please get in touch—they’re both available on the website. So do go and have a listen. And today’s session will be there later if anybody wants to rewatch the pearls of wisdom that Johanna and I shared with you.

CPD certs will be sent out once we receive them.

So thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for the questions. And Johanna, thanks for sharing all your stories.

Thank you.
Thanks everyone for watching.

We’re going to play ourselves out with Dickie from Cooley Cheddar speaking about getting better with age:

“Sometimes getting older is a good thing.
Take a fine cheese.
With steady planning, careful preparation, and trusted guidance, it matures.
At Standard Life, we believe in a similar approach when planning for retirement.
Because when you do, things get better with age.”

Good morning, good morning, good morning. We have a jam packed virtual auditorium today. My name is Sonia Lennon, I am your host today and I am very honoured to be a Second Life mentor with Standard Life. This is women and pensions, a discussion about everything to do with women and pensions from the broader societal landscape right down into the detail. You are our illustrious audience. You're going to have loads of engagement today. Excuse me, we want your questions. We believe there are some colleagues, friends and people who are two guests know today. You're going to be introduced to them very shortly. Please do get your questions in. We want to be able to help you, to inform you, to entertain and engage you today around all things women in pension.

And it is worth saying that my 2 guests here today along with two others also guested on the Standard Life Women and Pensions podcast, which is coming to your global platform very soon. You will be informed. It will be on the Advisors hub on the Standard Life website, tons and tons of really applicable information really pertinent to all of your clients in terms of how they engage with pensions and particularly around the nuances of women in pensions. So you will be getting notification and I hope you enjoy the podcast. It is going to continue to grow.

So now over to my 2 guests. Today I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by my friends Cleana Hughes and Philip Brennan. Cleana, you might introduce yourself to the audience.

Yeah. So my background was originally in marketing. I worked for a product provider and kind of morphed into the sales side of things. I won't lie, I didn't think the money might be there. So I thought I'd follow that. Worked there for quite some time, ended up doing a few more qualifications, got really interested in what the financial advisors that we were working with were doing and how they were working with their clients. And I just thought that was very interesting, like a totally different relationship and I, it was something I could see myself getting into. So that's what happened. To make a Long story short, I ended up working with MGM Financial Services, who I work with now. They took a bit of a leap of faith on me because I didn't have direct client facing experience. And I took a leap of faith that they wouldn't treat me horribly. Hi, guys. If you're out there. No difficult questions, please. Yeah. So I've been working in this space now over the last number of years. Absolutely love it. It's far more face to face than I suppose previous roles that I would have done. I'm I'm in there meeting clients and learning about their lives and what's driving them and what they're their worries are or what their hopes are. And I love it you're.

Thriving obviously. And we're going to get into, I suppose the, the, the knob of how you engage your clients a little bit later on. Philip, you might give us an intro.

So probably around a bit longer than than Tina. I've been in the industry probably over 30 years now. I started actually in in Hibernian insurance. Some people will remember them now. Aviva, I think they are now. I moved into commercial union, then after that down in Australia and I went back to the UK and worked in brokers in the UK for a number of years and then came back to Ireland, working as an advisor here for more than 25 years now.

So you're saying there's nothing you don't know about advice I'm. Very positive audience. Supporting. Very smart. People out there no, we, we're I'm really looking forward to to the discussion today.

So let's do a little bit of scene setting. We're here for a reason. We're here discussing women in and pensions for a reason, because women are lagging behind in terms of adoption and management of their pensions. And we see that in the staff Standard Life do phenomenal research, uh, in landscaping the world of pensions. So if you TA, if you look at the statistic that 62% of women are anxious about their pensions versus 42% of men. And even if you zoom out from pensions, 43% of women are anxious talking about money compared to 29% amount. So there's a real, um, there's a real gap there in terms of how we position financial well-being and finances with women and men. Clean from your experience and are are you seeing that born out?

Yes, absolutely. Umm, you know, I mean, I do have, I have some women that are very engaged and have been for a long time, but they're, they're the exception rather than the rule. I would have a lot of other female clients that are nervous, they're nervous, they're worried, they feel like they don't understand it. And I mean, these are successful women who are really good in their own spaces. There's nothing that they can't learn. There's nothing that they can't do, you know, So it's not, I think the industry probably hasn't helped itself a little bit in using abbreviations for everything. There's an acronym for everything. There's another name, there's another name like there is work going on and simplifying things. But I think that's a large part of our job is, is trying to make it more understandable and easier and less intimidating. So that does help when, but there are definitely, I would say definitely women that are.

Afraid. And I suppose if you take the women that, that are coming to you for advice, they're either, you know, honest, they know what they're doing, or they're really nervous. They're still the women who have made it to you. There's a huge cohort of, of women out there who, who haven't even come to the party. And I suppose that is the, the massive opportunity for our audience today to kind of look at expanding out their, their client base for social good. Let's be honest, because this is we, we need to do this. We need to change the discussion for women. We need to get women comfortable about talking about money. And, and I suppose to that end, Philip, this is maybe the moment when we change the way we talk about pensions to him.

Yeah. We, we, we discussed this earlier on about the pension is just a long term savings vehicle with tax breaks. And so sometimes using the word pension is off putting for some people, maybe they're, they're, they're too young to even think about that. So long term savings. Can you be too young to think about pension? Yeah. So. So, so I, I think I, I often say, you know, there's this great sort of communication theory that I came across a while ago, which was you, you cannot put water in a full glass. You know, full glass is a full glass. So if somebody comes to you and they're overwhelmed and they're afraid and they're anxious and they're not even sure why they're at, at your door, why, why are they even entering into, into this discussion? Is it the right thing to do? I, I really think that the first thing that we need to do is to listen to, to understand the position of the person in front of us. You know, where are they now? What are the opportunities? What are the hopes and dreams that, that get them to where they want to go? How, how do you clean up approach that with somebody, particularly if it's somebody who's nervous?

Yeah, I think you just have to sort of tease it out. There's normally a reason, you know, if somebody is very nervous, they've had some kind of a negative experience and that's driving R Sometimes they know somebody who's had a negative experience, but they've never heard the good stories, you know, or they've read those headlines, you know, of 08/09 and they're still afraid of things and. So that's a real legacy hangout for a lot of people, I think, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And, and I suppose why? Why should we not be afraid of that anymore? Oh well, exactly as as Philip was saying, pensions are a long term savings vehicle. So it doesn't matter what happens this week or this month or even this year. It's sort of it's a mind shift because normally that is what you're worried about. You're thinking about the current account or the debts or the holidays or whatever is coming up. Actually now you have to step back and plan out much further and that gives you the time to allow all those things pass by. You know, like when you look at the, the stats of how the markets have done over a long term, yes, you will do well. Yes, you will get a return, but you've got to stick with it. You've got to during the tough times. I always say that to people, if they're worried or they're nervous, that's the time they should be ringing. That's the time they should be getting on to me because that's what I'm there for, to hold their hand through that time. You know, we can make adjustments as we go through their career, through their their savings, but that might be the time where I'm just saying to them you just have to hang tough for a little while and we'll get that. That might even be the time where you make the wins, where, where you can double down, you know, and, and just just get through it.

Philip, I, I suppose, you know, advisors and I, I've been in rooms with many probably people who are on the call as well. And I think because it is a very technical sector and there is, there are a lot of acronyms, There are a lot of matrices and, and, and numbers and percentages and, and, and really the advisors are the only people who know all that detail. Sometimes there can be, I suppose, a temptation to, to communicate with that depth of knowledge. Is there another way?

Well, as Selena said earlier on the pensions world, the pensions landscape is changing and it is going to be simplified so it will be easier in the future. We'll have a world of, of workplace tensions and Psas, probably not a whole lot else. The state pension, Uh, so having the conversation with clients would become easier today as you've bought the acronyms, we have ARFS, you know, PRSASAPCSSSAPS, dozens of them. And for the average person who doesn't know a lot about the industry, it is very confusing. Of course it is. So it is our job to simplify it. That's what we're here to do, to try and explain to people this is how it works. It's actually not that complex. Deep down it's pretty simple, but we have complicated it over time with layers and layers of legislation and new products. And I can understand how people come to an advisor and they just don't know how this works.

And I wonder then, you know, if we talk about explaining on the one hand versus engaging on the other. And they're two very different things, you know, And it, it strikes me from sort of living in this world for a while now that it's nearly about emotionally endowing somebody through storytelling, helping them to get there. Because, you know, we, we talk a lot. And it's at the core of everything to do with pensions about delayed gratification. We do. And who doesn't love delayed gratification? Nobody loves delay. Yeah, it is. It's it's one of those things. And it's the best way to explain it to people. Look, I know you're not going to get that money into your hand today, but future you is going to be really happy that current you made these choices. And I always say that because we see clients at retirement, they're never sorry that they put that money in. They're never sorry that they invested. Actually, their biggest regrets are I should have done a bit more, I should have started earlier, those kind of things. You know, it's not, there's never any regrets about what they have done. So that's it's really important people have to think about.

How? You know, how is this going to benefit them in the long term term and taking what they might feel is a little bit of a hit now, You know, like I say to people, if if they're in salary negotiations, maybe rather than increasing salary, maybe you could look for contribution to a pension. So I love this because I think, you know, like I've worked with, you know, hundreds of companies and, and a lot around sort of gender equity and, and, you know, addressing the gender pay gap. And then obviously the gender pension gap is a, is a sort of a magnification of that. I love the idea that we start, you know, educating people to, to, to negotiate their, their pension while they're negotiating their salary. It's so important. Isn't it? It is. And I think if you give people the confidence to say, First off, this is a really important thing to do. Secondly, part of this can be within your control. Like you can, you can take that conversation a bit further rather than just saying, oh, I must get around starting that. Maybe there's a clever way of doing it. And because it's a bit cheaper for the employer, because they don't have to pay employers PSI on salary, maybe they will be willing auto enrollment is coming. So they're going to have to get in there ahead of the game. And even like when we speak to employers as well, like they're much better off doing it now before they're forced to do it because it doesn't seem like a good thing if it if it's something they have to do, it takes all the good out of it.

We have a question in here already. If I retire at 55, how much can I model my existing pension plot to grow by the time I'm 65? Philip Well, if you're retiring at 55, are you taking your benefits at 55? That's the first question. If you're not you just in my view, you just continue to invest, keep your strategy in place, continue invest up right to retirement agent and probably beyond it as well. The challenge is people are taking their benefits early. Yeah. Is there enough to sustain? What impact will that have and my overall funds down the line? You're drawing down an income for a larger period of time. So let's talk about that at the moment. Let's cut to the to the end of the story, if you like and talk about what drawdown looks like. So we are predominantly advisors there. I know that the the link went live. There may be some people who are new to this discussion. We'll try and keep it advisor focused. But just, I suppose, tips in terms of communicating because I think that's where you bring real value as an advisor in terms of telling the story of what drawdown looks like to your clients. Yeah. And everyone loves a good story. And we spoke about ARF's approved retirement funds and how 24 years now we have ARF. So we have the stats now to see how have people done in low risk portfolios, medium risk portfolios, how have they done in high risk portfolios, but outcomes that they had as their funds shrunk, has it grown? What has their income been like over that period of time? What has the volatility been like? And for ourselves, I mean we keep a record of this because we demonstrated to to clients that here's an example of a client of ours who retired at a certain age and lived for so long threw down X amount and his fun value was very close to what it was at the asset, even though we had a very strong income to that period of time. So using that to explain the the importance of being being invested in, in growth assets. And continuing to hold your level of risk in the in the remaining part, I suppose as well to to keep keep that income. Yeah. And these conversations weren't had back in the days of annuity only, you know, you, you, you bought.

Irrelevant. No, you bought your annuity. I drink. That was the end of the story. But now our relationship to our clients continue on into retirement because we're talking every year, maybe even more frequently. Which is a different way of being as well I suppose. It is because you're, you're, you're dealing with a client now who's not working anymore, who was living a second life, who was doing something else and how this income from their pension is benefiting, who's helping them with that. It's wonderful to have all those decades and data now to be able to have sort of irrefutable proof points, I suppose, about what's going on the. Conversation hasn't quite caught up though, because I would often find people think their general understanding is, Oh yeah, when you're early in in the pension planning process, you go high risk and then you de risk till you get to retirement. And that was very much the old style when you had an annuity. So when you get in front of a client and you get talking to them, you can bring them through that process. But I do find that's often the initial belief point for the process. Yeah. And and that's still there because we have corporate pensions which have a lifestyling strategy where people are automatically de risked as they get older and, and that's not always appropriate. So, so we do presentations to the staff of, of employer clients of ours, We talk about that. And what is important to you? Is it about a secure income? Is it about growing your fund to be as big as possible? Are you looking for no risk in retirement? And it's important to have a conversation as early as possible.

Can I talk to you, Philip, about, about what you see in terms of risk appetite women versus men in the market and with your with your clients? It's a dangerous question. We love dangerous vessels. I, I, I would say women are generally quite astute when it comes to when you've had the conversation with them. They possibly are a little bit more cautious sometimes and but again, once you've had a rich conversation with them, explain to them how this process works. They're comfortable taking a bit more risks than they ordinarily would have chosen. And that's, I suppose, where the trust building comes into play. They're only going to do that once you've created that environment that they feel, you know, this person's going to guide me, right? Yeah. And I, I think if you, if you look at the, the number of employers out in, in, in, in the country and sometimes it surprises me how employers don't really push their pension on their staff. It's there in the background. Sometimes the CFO was quite happy if people don't join the pension scheme, but that'll change obviously without EE coming down the line. But when you have people who are having conversations with advisors working on behalf of the employer who had unbiased conversations about the pension scheme in place for, for their staff, what's available to you, what the employer is willing to pay in, well, the outcome is likely to look if you engage in the process. The challenge we have is that a lot of younger people don't engage in the process. They don't see that pension as their pension. They see it out there somewhere, but they don't really think about it as their. Money. And it's too far away to yeah, actualize. And they're focused on getting married and focused on buying a house. So. So it's not really a priority. And I think for a lot of businesses, you know, they're not communicating it because it is not the priority of the business. The priority of the business is to do the daily business, you know, so I think, I think auto enrolment is going to change that a little bit. And, and how are you positioning that to, to your, to your corporate clients even how, how do you tell that story?

Yes. So in, in most cases with our corporate clients, if we look at the, the, the statistics of the staff numbers, but most companies don't have 100% of employees in the pension scheme. It could be as low as 50% in the pension scheme that's. Going to change? So, so we're having the conversation saying you have a workplace pension here already. There is an auto enrollment process kicking off now towards the end of the year or early next year. So you need to take action now to ensure that you don't have two parallel schemes running. One government sponsors, the other one your own private scheme. It doesn't make any sense that you get your employees into your scheme, get them in there contributing decent amounts. Chances are with the workplace pension scheme you have greater employer contributions than you will have in AE. Yeah. Almost certainly. So it makes an awful lot of sense to take. Adopt. Take action in advance. Yeah, got it. And and we won't spend too, too long on AE because I know our focus is on women, women in pensions at the moment.

A couple of questions in for a housewife unemployed, taking out a pension, do they get an option to take benefits sooner than the selected NRA? Also, how is their income taxed in retirement? If they are married with a spouse in the 40% tax bracket, We'd like to take that. Thank you, Philip. Can you have a question again I. Certainly. Can it's a joke. I mean, I mean, look, if if you're not working, do you pay into a pension or not? That's the first question. I suppose you're not going to get a tax relief on the contribution obviously, but you can pay into a peer as a if you choose to do so. So we wouldn't come across it very often as advisers. It's it's rare enough we'd have that for someone who's. So what's the? Second part of the question question is can they take a benefit sooner and how is their income taxed in retirement if they are married to spouse at 40%? Yeah. So it's not, I mean it's no different to anybody else taking their pension. They can take a age, they're allowed to take it out whether they're employed or unemployed. The taxation status on the on the on the payments will depend on their overall income levels that they're jointly assessed. Household income, yeah, yeah, there's actually quite a few questions. I I want to get to them because honestly, you are why we're here so let me just go through a few of these great content Thank you.

I'm seeing a number of female clients in receipt of pension funds through pension adjustment orders following a marriage breakdown. We were talking about this earlier. We were going to come to it and some clients have very limited financial experience and giving advice is challenging. Any thoughts from the panel clean? I'm going to come to you on that. Yeah, I absolutely get that. We would have a number of and they are predominantly female clients that maybe worked in the home, supported somebody through their career. And then it's maybe at a later stage. There's a lot going on in their lives, like they've split up from their husband. You know, there's, there's probably all those negotiations. Inherent vulnerability, which is already. In a sensitive place. So that's difficult. And then they've suddenly got this agreement that they've got X amount of money, something from the pension adjustment order. So they now have the pension, but they've maybe never had any experience. They've maybe left that now, like I'm generalizing, but I do have a number of clients that are exactly in this scenario and they are very intimidated by the whole thing. And all I can say is that just takes time. That is a trust building. It's probably a little bit slower than maybe it is with other clients, but you've just got to get the process started. And I think regular hand holding really helps that checking in that, that sitting down with them and saying, okay, you know, and I do find they're quite low on the, the risk level, but you get the. Second build. Exactly.

And actually the, the, I don't know if you have gone to Second life questionnaire on the Standard Life website. I, I've been through it, I've, I've filled it out. It is so clarifying and so comforting to kind of ask big questions that don't necessarily come up in everyday conversation around what do you want the rest of your life to be like? And I think even to sit down with a client and say, let's go through this, let's ask some key questions. Don't even answer them on the spot. Think about them, assimilate and come back to them because I think asking those quick big questions, particularly at a sort of an intersection point in your life, it is, is really clarifying. Isn't it? It is, yeah. And I find the financial planning software really helpful here because these are people that are in a difficult position that don't really understand it. But if you can use a visual piece to show them, we're plugging in what you have and these are the various different scenarios. This is maybe why I'm asking you to take on a bit more risk because I want you to be in a better position for longer. That really helps because otherwise it's too abstract. It's too hard to get a handle on. It's too, it's just too much. So you can help them through the process with that. That's really helpful. But things like, you know, if they've gone through that, that Second Life questionnaire and they've come out of it and said, well, actually I am interested in this without you can plug that in as well. Yeah, I. That's very reassuring. I think that visual tool and, and I'm sure all of our advisors use some form of visual tool. Um, it, it really makes a massive difference. Again, as somebody who's been through that process, it's that kind of penny drop moment where you can see, oh wow, I can look at my future on a graph, see what's happening.

I'm going to keep going through the questions by looking for an increase in pension or to start a pension now rather than giving the employee an increase in salary, is that just giving the employer the benefit of avoiding an increase in salary as they will need to do a pension in auto enrolment anyway? But I think it's a little column A and column B is. Absolutely. Six, one and a half dozen of another. Look, if you're, if you're pushing, you know, you're, you're getting better value out of it because if you got that say it was a 5% contribution, if you got that 5% contribution as an increase to salary, you're paying tax on it straight away. Yeah. You know, whereas this is going into a pension, you now have your tax free growth within that long. Tail value. Long, you have to think long term, yeah. So don't think of it as, you know, somebody's trying to catch somebody else out, you know, is this a way we can progress it? If it is great and do both. Yeah, yeah.

Pension increase quick fire one for you Phillip. Will auto enrollment allow early retirement before 60? No, no, we understand it won't. I mean, what we're hearing and it's not finalized yet, but what we're hearing is that, uh, it'll tie in with the state retirement age, which will be 66. So there'll be no pulling out early. And on top of that, there'll be no AVC ING, there'll be no additional single contributions. It's quite restrictive. OK. So I think if for for an individual, if you're choosing between going down an auto enrollment if you if you can or the employer's offering, if you have an employer that's offering an alternative certain deal, employer will offer a more comprehensive arrangement, more flexible. Arrangement and if you if you find yourself in auto enrolment as an employee, can you switch? Would employers offer you an opportunity to switch into the into the company pension? Yeah. Again, I don't know the full details yet, but I, I think you probably could. So if if you're in auto enrolment and you change employer, the employer makes the scheme available to you, you choose to join that and I. Suppose if if you have a client who is in an auto enrolment, it doesn't mean that an additional part can't be added to that, but you. Won't be paying additional contributions into the no, but you can take. Out a separate plan. You can do the alternatives and yeah, if it's available to you as a place pension, Perfect, perfect.

Hi. You mentioned vulnerability. Uh, should you treat them as a, as a vulnerable client? Thanks. That's a really interesting question. Women in general. Well, you know, I think. Probably related back to that divorce piece. I'm, I'm guessing because we mentioned vulnerability, like if somebody is going through a really massive life change where they're feeling, I'm not sure you have to go down the full vulnerable client piece, but it's no harm to put your gloves on and you know, very sensitively mind. Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a for me as a non advisor kind of looking, looking into this world, It's about treating people appropriately and with respect. You don't, I suppose the danger of positioning somebody as a vulnerable client is that you could end up patronizing them and you don't want to do that. You know, somebody will run a mile from that. But I suppose if you're mindful of their circumstances, respectful and appropriate, that's. I think you're going to adapt your approach to whoever you're sitting in front. Of, and the challenge is that I should say these people may be coming from a, a difficult divorce and the primary assets in, in most divorces are probably the family home and and whatever pension scheme is there. So they are coming from a, a vulnerable background doesn't mean they're a vulnerable person. Yeah. Yeah, Mary has had a question here. In your experience, we've touched on a little bit of women who are engaging in the pensions process, are they willing to take a level of risk required to generate the necessary return? So we did touch on that a little bit. And I think if we think about it as a sort of a continuum so that it's not, it's not, you know, one level of risk. It's like we don't have one aspect to our personalities. We have many aspects and and at different points in our in our timeline through our lives, we can look at different appropriate levels of risk.

Absolutely. And I mean, you might be looking at different levels of risk from different parts of your money. You know, your pension, you should be looking higher risk because you've got more time. But if it's your savings, which you're looking at a shorter term, you're going to take a different level of risk. If it's the money in your current account that if you Bob you need for your holidays, well, that's a zero risk. So you know, it's, it's not a one-size-fits-all. It could be different sizes for different pieces of your life and pieces of your financial life. And it's an evolutionary process, totally so. Yeah. And to be mindful of that. And I and I suppose that's where the advisor relationship comes into its own that it's not a one and done. It's this continuous engagement. And and that's why it's been reflected even in in terms of how people are modelling their business now and, and and and their their own revenue streams that that it is, you know, touch points throughout throughout the career. So we can keep the the pension appropriate to the client clean.

I want to talk to you about the types that you mean. We talked about a vulnerable What are the personae of women that you see coming? Yeah, well, I'd say that the first is probably very common. The I've never done anything I've been meaning to or haven't got around to it or, you know, I, I put it on the long finger. That's very that's very common. And I mean, the first thing I would say to that person is OK, well, now you're yeah, you know, you're, you're taking off the gauntlet now and you've got to run with it. That's fine. So today is the best day to start your pension. Yeah, Yeah, sure. We. Could in the absence of any answer. But don't put it off again. Yeah, you know, don't reach out and you know your New Year's resolution to go and and get your pension sorted, but then never actually fill out the application or whatever it is.

I think what, what we don't even realise is that there's an emotional toll to that carrying that anxiety around it. And, and actually the stats that that that bear that out are on the Standard Life website around that kind of the niggle. And, and when we see women engaging in pensions, that dissipates and suddenly it's one or less thing to worry about. You've done it, even if you do have to keep revisiting. Absolutely, and like you can see that in clients faces like the well part relief that they've got around to it. But there is a, you know, there's a bit of joy out of OK, another thing off my To Do List. You know, it's great to to get those up and running. So that that's probably very common.

The second type of person I'd see is they've bits and pieces of pensions. They've never maybe intentionally done it, but they had a job here, they had a bit of a job there. They're not really sure there's a payslip somewhere with something on it, like feel like there was a deduction. They haven't really put it together or thought about it or wasn't ever planned. And they're fine as well. And you can sit down and there's a little bit of hope. I had that recently, a very good friend of mine who who has worked in tech all her life and has had tons of jobs in the UK. She's come back to Ireland and she was doing renovations on her house and she's like the banker looking for all, all my pension. I, I don't even know where they are, you know, So I'm like, go and talk to an advisor. Here's a name, here's a number, go and do it. And I think these are the conversations that we need to be having with mothers, sisters, nieces, daughters, wives, you know?

People can be pleasantly surprised and actually it could be a great one where they know they had a little pension over small, it was, you know, 10,000 or whatever. And then because they haven't looked at it, but they were in a reasonable risk level. It's the pot is much bigger than they thought it was. And that's a great one when OK, we're, we're starting now. Well, you saw what that did. Let's do that again. Let's, you know, let's get this money working for you. So they're, they're very common as well. And particularly because of the way women's careers are, we're not linear. You know, you don't go in and nobody's career is like it used to be. You don't go in and join a job, work there for 40 years and then retire and that's it. You know, you tend to change and some jobs have pensions, some don't, some you didn't get around to. So we can work with that. Absolutely.

And then the third time I would see is somebody who actually is fairly together, maybe accidentally, maybe because they were in a good pension scheme through work, but maybe they're not that engaged with it. They don't really understand it. It's been going on and they're they're maybe surprised by how, you know, how well looked after they're going to be, but now they have to make decisions. So there's a reason they're coming to me. You know, they're triggering, they're coming closer to retirement age. And then they're a bit worried because suddenly they do have to take control of it. They do have to make the decision. So they have to learn about it. And that's, that's no problem. We can take people along that journey. We can teach them. We can, you know, get them comfortable with it. That's the most important thing. I feel if somebody walks away from having met me, just a little relief, you know, They're a good feeling about it, you know? OK, we're going to get this in a hat.

You, you must have had lovely, lovely engagements over the year, success stories, people who really you felt that was a result. Yeah, we have. And it is very gratifying for ourselves to to bring a client to a point where they finally finalize their retirement. They know how much they can expect to receive a monthly basis for the rest of their days. It's very rewarding. And we've had somewhere like you mentioned earlier on where somebody comes to us and referred to an existing client and they, they work for the company many, many years ago and they've, they never followed up on their pension. And we do the digging for them and we find a considerable amount of. Money you have one particular man that you spoke about before didn't. I have a number of them, but but the 11 that comes to mind now, this gentleman, he was, he was elderly, he was in his late 70s and the fund was huge. And I'm sitting in a company, there's a mining company I think he was with that was sold to another company and sold out to another company and schemes are all subsumed and they were sitting in an inactive schemes units and one of the larger employee benefit consultancies. And when we finally tracked it down, he was just staggered at the amount of money they were sitting there waiting for him. They're very rewarding and it's great. It's great to do that. But look, I suppose really this is the joy of our industry as well as that we have these strong relationships with the clients that are they're rewarding for all parts. And it's not just financial element of it for us, it's the it's the satisfaction of seeing a client getting what he or she deserved at the end of the day. Yeah. And and living well on that. Absolutely.

And keep, keep your client, they keep your clients coming in, keep your clients happy, keep your questions coming in. And we, we're absolutely delighted to answer everything. Tina, I, I love you had a story about, you know, you obviously socialized the idea of financial advice everywhere you go. You had one particular instance that that really amused me when you were. In receipt of services, am I right? I'm trying to think now which one was. It were you with? Was it a chiropodist or oh? Yeah, God, I forgot about that. Yeah, well, you know, one good turn deserves another. So I have very flat feet. Not that anybody needs to know it. I'm in getting my orthotics done. So getting to know you session. Lovely physio, specialized in this. She was brilliant, helped me out with everything. And you know, then she was telling me a little bit about her business and I said, oh, I'm a financial advisor and do you have a pension? Because you know, that's what I do. And I, she said, oh, and I used to have, but she had lived abroad for a few years and hadn't really got, I said, get it, you know, just get around to that. You know, you've plenty of time, you're young, but you can still go high risk do that. So I had to go back to collect everything. And she said, I was thinking about that and I was talking to my partner and he's in similar scenario, had pension, hadn't really, they're not sure what's in it. Would you mind talking to us? And I still, of course, no problem. So I actually met both of them. They're lovely and we were able to dig up the old pensions that they had. There was a few bought there and they're up and running again. They're planning, you know, they have, they've got loads of plans of what they're going to do. But I love it that you know, it is. And like taxi drivers, they're probably sacred driving. And do you have your pension now, isn't it?

But the, the industry has changed. And, and Philip, you, you've made a really good point around, you know, we're in this world. The stats are there to show that, you know, women have this anxiety and reticence that that outweighs that of men around money. But there are specific advisor services now directed at women as well, aren't there?

Yeah. And there are more and more female financial advisors today than there were 10/15/20 years ago. There's still not enough. I mean, if we go to the industry functions, you look around the room, it's probably 80% men, close enough to it. But there are firms, I understand there are firms that are female only, Like it's female advisors that are in that firm. And I think it's great. And women are very good talkers, Networking, they talk to each other. They confide in each other. Guys don't always do that. Yeah. You know, guys keep sort of, you know, they're not as keen to express their emotions or even finances with each other. Yeah. Whereas women probably more likely to do it. So that's that's a good.

Thing we have a big responsibility to socialize this discussion and we have a question here in from Michelle early retirement at 50. I'm 48 and having been looking for information really early retirement option at 50, but my pension providers are very reluctant to engage in conversation before I reach 50. Where where I where I under where I understand you receive lots of emails and notices. I would like to understand the details so that I can plan as opposed to waiting another two years. Any thoughts on this?

Yeah. Well, look, I suppose it depends on is she still working in that employment and and continuing to work. I mean in general the rule of thumb is don't retire your funds for as long as possible because it's in that tax free wrapper. So if you can avoid accessing it, please do if you need to, that's a, that's a different scenario. And if you're able to with the whatever scheme she's in, it might be possible. Like there should be employee handbooks and things like that. If it's a, if it's a scheme, you know, get those, have a dig back to bring it to a financial advisor and let them look through it for you and.

And I think what's what's fascinating about the this is we have a huge audience with us today, about 600 people and it is focused on the advisor community. I think it's absolutely amazing that this link has gone live and it's obviously attracting women who are interested in the discussion around pensions. There is a Standard Life women in pensions hub. Go go to the hub, have a little look. The resources are there, the stats are there, the research, loads of information that can help you to understand the world of pensions. I really advise you go to that and do the Second Life question. It's a fantastic resource.

We've another question here. How would you introduce pensions to a young female audience in their mid 20s who may not be aware of the benefits of starting a pest, a pension? Now this is from a financial advisor. I think it's a really good question. I think I. Again. For me as as a mother of a, a 19 year old, I 219 year olds, I've told them both as soon as you start earning us, when you start pension, it only needs to be tiny. But get the ball rolling because I think it's about the kind of psychological understanding of providing for the future. That can't be a bad lesson. Yeah. Thoughts on on an on a young audience?

Absolutely. You have to get in front of them and look people's time is short and the attention span is short. Like I think videos are really good and might feel really uncomfortable. I'm telling you, it feels really uncomfortable in front of a camera now, but you're. Doing great, Tina, you're doing great. You can record over PowerPoints. It's it's quite easy. You don't have, you know, you can be a small piece in the corner, short, snappy, try and do that. And there are people on social media and different things. So it's not really my area of expertise, but like that's where the kids are. Like, I don't know if we can get on TikTok and do pensions, you know, maybe we should like, that's how you engage people.

I'd say it's actually kind of regrettable that we have to do that. Yeah. I mean, I've said before that in my view if if once someone starts working as apps number, there should be deduction from their income from the day one and that goes into a pension fund for. The five O 1K is alive and well in the States. We should be kind of Yeah, it shouldn't be. Optional. It shouldn't be optional. We shouldn't be having this conversation trying to persuade people to take out a pension. Yeah, absolutely. So, and it's always the case, you know, once, once it's happened, like it's only the first month or two that they notice. And then after that, if it's not paid into your current account, it doesn't go out. So it's gone already. You've paid yourself first because you've made it. Exactly.

And I know from my experience, I, I went freelance very, very early in my 20s and my dad, who'd worked in the bank all his life, said, OK, you can do it because you're effectively turning yourself into a pirate. But if you do it, you start a pension. And, and he made me start a pension at the age of 23, to which I am eternally grateful to him. You know, but I think it is if we don't have the discussions, if we don't open it up, if we don't talk amongst our friends and families, this won't happen. And we're at a fantastic inflection point now to change the common conversation and to take that fear away. And, and you guys are at the coalface as advisors, you have the option to, to change the language, change the engagement, move from informing to engaging and, and get people excited about Second Life because Second Life is different now than it ever was.

Yeah, absolutely. It's not. You know, nobody's retiring in beside the fire to sit there for the rest of their lives. That's not how it works. People are retiring differently, they're cutting back hours, they're changing what they're doing. It's all, it's opportunity. That's what it is. And you know, obviously you need your help. That's really important. But it's also important to look after your wealth as well. And it's that's not an open thing to say. It is important. Money is important. It's important for all of us. So we've got to take those extra steps and.

When you, when you think of it, Second Life and the plans you have for post working life, I, I think really it's the, it's the 6th, it's the 10 years from the age of 60 to 70 that the key years that that decade is so important that if you could come out early enough in that decade and be able to do all the stuff you've thought about doing, whatever it is, whether it's biking or cycling or running or or just travelling or doing yoga, become an artist, whatever. Whatever it is. Like did you have the health and the wealth to allow you to do that? Because definitely when you, I think when you reach 70 years of age, for most people, physical health is declining somewhat. They say that travel falls off a Cliff from the age of 70 onwards. People's desire to put up an airport queues and all that stress that goes with it, that diminishes substantially. And and doing the stuff you want to do when you're able to do it is really.

Tell that to my 85 year old father who went snorkeling in the Bay of Bengal. He's. My hero and. He's my hero. One final comment, what about brokers Ireland Ty programme? A great idea for young people. Honestly, that's fantastic because the sooner we can have these discussions, the better for everybody for for our own personal health, the individual and to change how we discuss money in our society.

Tina and Philip, thank you so much. It's such a pleasure. Please do keep posted for the launch of our podcast. Both Cleaner and Phillip, our guests and have fantastic episodes. Brilliant stuff covered over and above what we've covered today. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. There will be a continued campaign around women in pensions, helping us all to tell that story to women to allow them to create their best financial future.
 

Sometimes getting older is a good thing. Take a fine cheese. With steady planning, careful preparation, and trusted guidance, it matures. At Standard Life, we believe in a similar approach when planning for retirement. Because when you. Do things get better with age?

Good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome to the second webinar of our summer series. As always, thank you for taking the time to come and join us this morning. My name is Adam McCarthy, and in a moment, I'm going to be introducing to Tara O'donnehoo, our Head of Marketing and Standard Life Summer Series. This year is about, well, in my view. It's been a pretty frantic year, been a lot of regulatory change, there's been a lot of turmoil in the markets. And we all know the story around interest rates. And it feels like we've been running at 150 miles an hour for the majority of the year now. Not suggesting that things have gotten easier, but typically in July and August, we might fall back to about 100 miles an hour, might be able to get a bit of a breath. And the summer series is all about having that calibration in advance of what's likely to be a very busy September through to December. And we're just looking at, I suppose, some of the opportunities we see out there, some of the ways that advisors can engage customers and continue to deliver that advice that's so valued.

In the first webinar, we looked at deposit and secure options, what's happening with interest rates and how that interest rate increase has allowed some secure options to come back in as a viable option for customers. Going forward. We are going to look in the future of the third webinar at corporate investments. And then we're going to last. We're going to look at investment funds, particularly around ESG and passive investing. So they're all available on the website. So please do register. But back today, today is about better with age and we're going to look at the concept of the journey to and through retirement. I'm sure many people on the webinar today have heard me say 100 times and probably will hear me say 100 times again into the future. Retirement has and is changing. It is now very much a process of change. It's no longer a destination. And with that process of change brings opportunity for the advisor market because it's not just about the financial plan, it's also about the other elements of financial of retirement planning that we think has a big opportunity. So myself and Tara are going to talk through some of those concepts today. In particular, we're going to look at second line first of all, then we're going to look at how retirement is changing and then examine some of the opportunities we see for the advisor market to engage customers and to really enhance that journey to into retirement.

So Sarah, good morning, good to see you. Before we get into, I suppose, some of the concepts that we want to talk to and some of the ideas we think advisors can take advantage of. Today we talk about Second Life and often we talk about changing the narrative around pension planning, but can you give us a quick overview of what Second Life actually is and what it means? Thanks, Alan. I will. Good morning, everybody. It's great to see so many joined us this morning. I hope you guys have a strong Muggeteer coffee because it's one of my favorite topics and I can talk and I can certainly talk about this. So to take it up to a high level first, Alan, second life is how we talk about retirement in Standard Life, OK? Because that's what it is. It's your second life. It's your second opportunity. And it's the time in life when you should be reaping the benefits of what's happened in your first life. So I see our first life is when we're building, when we're hitting a lot of the traditional lifestyle key milestones. And into your second life is when you're beginning to reap the rewards of that. It's complex. And throughout this morning's webinar, guys, I'm going to talk about the number 3 quite a bit, OK? So when we talk about Second Life, we have 3 component parts that we talk about. So to have a really good Second Life, I think people need to look at financial planning. And the other two then are how are they staying socially connected into their retirement and how are they staying purposefully busy into that retirement? Because unless they plan holistically, life doesn't quite get better with age.

Yeah. So if I could say holistic is interesting. So I think a lot of our advisors will be very comfortable with the financial plan side of it and don't want to break it down. But that is the product, that is the amount they can afford, that is sustained their, their, their income. That is cash flow plan, I shall say. But when you start stepping over to the holistic, you're bringing in an emotional element. You might just touch on that in terms of how you connect both. Yeah. Absolutely it is emotional. It absolutely is. And look, I I work on marketing. Most research studies will tell you that a lot of our decisions in life are emotional. We rationalize the nature, but they are emotional. The challenge for our industry is we're selling a dream. I talked to somebody from the National Lottery recently and they said that there's actually a good parallel between trying to sell winning the Latto and selling a retirement journey. And it's very interesting when you think about it. So who hasn't dread about winning the Latto? And when you win it, it's freedom because you're going to pay off the mortgage. And it could to stop working. And it's luxurious because I can do the things I want to do all the time. And they're the parallels with having a good retirement. OK. So I think it's important that people are planning holistically. I don't know if, you know, if you stop working full time and go into retirement, you free up 2000 hours. It's a lot of time. And we've worked with Mitch Anthony before, who has a very simple metric for looking at this. On a sheet of paper, draw out three boxes, one for the morning, one for the afternoon, one for the the evening and do that for seven days. You've 21 boxes. How are you going to spend that time? It's easy to think I'll, I'll golf more, I'll look after the grandkids. I'll, I'll do some gardening, I'll take up a hobby. But actually you need to put some planning in to think and how are you going to be purposefully busy during that phase?

But. The purpose will be busy, get the whole idea that when people retired, there's probably a number of weeks, a number of months where it's it's the honeymoon phase. She'll be saying you don't have to get up at at 7:00 in the morning commute and that's fantastic. But eventually that that disappears. Yeah. But to lead it really personally, obviously you have the financial plan in place, you have the foundations because fortunately winning the LAHL is still a key component of my financial plan and it could be further people too. So we can't, and we're not underplaying the significance of getting that foundation first, then get the financial plan set up, speak with the advisor, make sure you've got that plan in place. Absolutely. That plan is an enabler. It opens up a lot of possibilities and it's not a one and done plan. So I joined my first pension scheme when I was 27 I didn't think about retirement at that stage, it was just the thing to do. Thankfully where I worked, I'm still going to be 47. Whatever I thought I was doing at 27 has changed. So I would really encourage people to go in and and replan and take course corrections. So I think we should be meeting with our financial advisors every two to three years further out. And the closer you get an annual review is really important. And we'll talk later about the ideas of longevity and the idea of retirement changing back in the concept. Back back in the day, we thought that we'd retire at 65 and lived to 75. That was 10 years you were funding. Thankfully we're living in for our 90s. Alan, you're funded 2530 years now. Well. What what's significant about that is that not just longevity side, but when you think of retirement, traditionally we think retirement is 65 and obviously we know that's changed and we've touched on that in a while. It's it's very varied, but is there a danger as well that we would think of Second Life as purely as retirement? So where does Second Life begin? OK, so that really is strange. OK, So again, if we go back to that marker of 65, stop work into retirement, what we're seeing more now is transitions into that journey. OK, so people are looking to maybe change career into their 50s and 60s because the pace of what they're doing doesn't suit their life anymore. People are looking to pivot into part time work. So it's not this milestone that I just stop and move on. It's a transition, and again, that's something that we want to raise a conversation on. We want to get more people thinking about that transition. I love my job. You know, I love my job, but I won't be doing this at 70. Yeah, for a lot of reasons. I won't have the energy or the pace for it, but I also won't have the knowledge. There are younger guys coming through far more skill than me, and I need to get out of their way. So I think Second Life is really about considering those transitions. If I retired at 65 and lived to be 95, I can't look after the garden for the whole time. I have to have other occupancy. Yeah. So have the have the financial plan, but be prepared to have the conversation with the financial advisor at 40, at 50. And obviously, depending on the situation, that conversation could be changing a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we do a phenomenal amount of research to understand what's actually happening for people on that journey to and through retirement. And one of the early milestones that people really found daunting was the idea that at a point I'm going to stop working. We mightn't be aware of it. I mean, there's days when I wish I could stop working, but we mightn't be aware of how much we depend on work. A for the routine, B, for the social connectivity. By and large, we enjoy the people we work with. We have a little bit of banter, chat about the weather. We really have a dependency on that. And when that's gone, there's a bit of a vacuum and there could be a sense of loneliness and you can lose purpose. So this got us thinking about, well, what would be the ideal in that scenario? And it actually led us to Brian Mooney, our end of career guidance councillor.

Well, this is interesting because I would like to before you went to explain it with Brian is because we have Second Life but we also have end of career guidance councillor and we also have better with age. So it might be just worth touching on those.

Yeah, absolutely. So end of career guidance better with age and we've more to come the touch points under Second Life. So I think a Second Life is the umbrella. This is how we talk about the transition and these are the touch points. So, so up to now, most of our focus has been on that first one. What do I do when I'm not working? So Brian is a career guidance counsellor with over 40 years experience. A lot of us parents are, have, have, have kids gone through the schooling system and they meet with a career guidance counsellor to understand Alan, what is your skill set? What is your interest? Maybe these are the college courses of the trade you should be looking at. Fine, nobody helps you after that. We very rarely get career guidance later on and some people are lucky enough they invest in life coaching and career mentoring, but aside from that we don't actually really get career guidance. Brian was coming to his own retirement and he was feeling overwhelmed with the idea of this routine stopping and him not having that connectivity anymore, which was fortuitous for us because we had an opener. So we hired Ireland's first and as far as we know only end a career guidance counsellor. So what Brian does is he he meets with advisors and he meets with clients to help them understand, well, if this was my skill set, how can I continue to use that into retirement? Lots of people use it in voluntary capacities. They go on the local council committee, they start working at the GA club and and things of that which gives some routine, give some purpose, give some connectivity, which is really important. But more and more, we're seeing people what we call unretire. So I've retired, I've been two years retired and I snuck back into work.

Yeah. And. When? We ask why do they go back to work? Yeah, There is a cohort that say it's, it's for financial reasons. My plan wasn't right and my pot wasn't big enough. I had to go back or the cost of living has pushed me back into work. But actually for more of them, it's connectivity in the sense of being purposefully busy. We all love that feeling of Friday evening and we finish work. And when you're retired and you don't have the structure, you don't get to celebrate and have a nice dinner on a Friday night to to celebrate the end of the week. So that's end of career guidance. That's really about talking to people about what you're doing now is going to exhaust. So what do you do next? Because you're still fit and healthy and you know you've got lots to give.

Absolutely. How do we help you and? I doubt as well as advisors who are on the call today, they have retired hundreds if not thousands of people already and they've seen a good retirement and a bad retirement and probably see the attributes of a good retirement versus the attributes of a bad retirement. So it's really important to be having those conversations. But that type of content and that type of support is available through through the end of career guidance and even the concept of it.

Yeah. Yeah, Brian has spoken on our behalf at lots of events, at industry events, at, at client facing events and even with advisors, because that's the idea. We know advisors know financial planning, they're very well qualified, very experienced at it, but this can push them out of their comfort zone. So, you know, I, I can talk anything you want about the technicalities of the pension, but don't ask them to talk about the retirement space. And we're just trying to break that barrier down. And so we have lots of sport, we've lots of tools we're going to touch on in a few minutes. But Brian is a great resource and he's, he's just a good, good character and he, he nails it for a whole range of people Like, so he's fantastic. And, you know, we run webinars with him through the years so people can tap into that. And a career is 10. Sorry.

Yeah. So I was going to say end of career is is 1 aspect and we have Brian there to to I suppose guide advisors and give some support there. But the webinar today is better with age and that's our next kind of campaign. So you might give us a bit of detail around the idea behind us and how that engages customers.

Absolutely. So back to the idea of the voice of the retiree. Retirement is changing and we'll talk about that in more detail in a few minutes. But one of the things that we're picking up in research time and time again is people are fed up with the negativity around old age. I told my mum recently that she was an old age venture and she nearly whacked me. She's she's 75 and she still doesn't see herself as an AOB. So retirees were were pushing back against that sense of old and retired. And we need to really flip the script. We need to find new language. If anybody wants to help me out, please put it into the chat. What words can you use to describe this that doesn't involve the OR word the retirement board because people are pushing back against it?

OK, taking that on board then. We were hearing some really lovely stories about this being a golden time and the time to celebrate. And they just one, one retiree summed it up when she said life gets better with age. And we took that hook and we started to explore it. And we've had some lovely sentiment from people about being able to live at my own pace, not having to get up at 7:00 because I'm going to work and not watching the clock, being able to find the time for the things I could never do. And it's not all big. So people will talk about travelling more. And of course that's a nice thing to do. Playing more golf, absolutely, but some of it is the smaller thing. So we'll, we'll get to the retirement chat videos a little while. But Michael said on his first day of retirement, he woke up and he realized not going to work. I he had a leisurely breakfast and he looked out onto the patio that hadn't been cleaned and wet in quite a while. And he said, that's what I'll do today. I'll go and weed the patio. And he spent 4 hours reading the patio. We met him two years later, and he said, I've never gone back to it. But it was just that sense of being finally the master of my own destiny.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Really important. So everyone advise it on sitting listen to this and I get the concept of second life and changing that narrative. I get the concept of an end of year or end of career guidance counsellor and and better with age. However, I'm knee deep in products and knee deep in IRS and legislation changing. I'm dealing with my customers. I'm looking at financial plans and while we need to provide more holistic advice and there's no doubt that customers engage with it emotionally differently, but I'm sure some of us are going. But how do I take that step over the lines? Because I'm not cancer, I'm a financial planner, but I guess I need to engage customers in it. So how do you suppose square that circle?

OK, so I think it starts with storytelling. We love storytelling. We're a nation of it, and we love listening to people's stories. And at any family gathering, we listen to the same stories over and over again, and we know we've heard them before, but we don't mind because we know what's coming. So our retirement Shack videos centre on retirees telling their own story. So advisors don't need to counsel or coach somebody on retirement. They need to show them those videos because that's what it is. It's more authentic to listen to somebody who's just gone through it. Yeah, tell what it's like than an advisor who hasn't retired yet. So I just think it's to learn to utilize the tools that are there to carry that message for them. It's back to the idea that we're still selling a dream. I'm here trying to live my best first life. I'm struggling with all the issues in the world today and you're nagging me to talk about my second life. So it's very far removed and I don't want to think about it. So I think use some of the tools and let them carry it. So some of the things that.

So yeah, you might just touch on a few of the tools that are available there. Classic and still my favorite on is the second line questionnaire. OK, so that's available on our website and we can certainly organise printed copies if any of the advisors need them. Just get in touch with your business manager. This was designed before me so I can't take any of the credit of it, but I just think it's beautiful in its simplicity. There are only 8 questions on it and what amazes me is when you watch somebody fill it out, they answer some of them very quickly and then they struggle with others. And to me, that's the questionnaire working because that's showing me now that we're prompting you to think about something you hadn't thought about before. So the advisor doesn't need to feel like they have to become a marketeer and learn Second Life inside out, learn to use the tools they're there. So I think to give Second Life Questionnaire to a client and definitely to a couple and we'll touch on why women approach retirement different to men later. But definitely watch people fill it out. And back to my idea of planning is not one and done. It's something that you need to check in regularly and ask your clients to fill it out again. Because what I want to achieve in retirement is going to evolve and mature as I get older. So absolutely.

Ready. And actually somebody I think got the feedback I've had from advisors abuse it. It can be used in different ways and that some advisors would send it to the client and the client would fill out, but the advisor would never see the answer. Fine because it's all it's doing is prompting the client to think about it. Yeah. Other times the client comes back and sits with the advisors and goes, this is what I put down. Is this right as such, And obviously, there's no right for romance. It's about just getting the engagement part of the conversation. Yeah. I think so. And the, the, the second tool that we have, again, it's, it's up on our website, is our bringing retirement into focus annual. Yes, I, I'm such an Urdel and this reminds me of ordering like the, the, the Christmas annual let's go when you're a kid. I love when we get this annual ready for print and, and I've been through the drafts, but I can't wait to get it and, and to start reading it. This is a year's worth of research. Now we interview 1000 people in the adult population, so it's fully naturally represented. 4 * a year. This report is carrying 4000 people's opinions plus all of the qualitative focus groups we do, plus the advisor research that we do. And back to my idea of talking about the three things. This report is themed on three ideas. OK. So what we talk about is people's journey and bringing retirement into focus by gender, by generation and by geography.

OK. So you might just touch on each one of those. So what the differences are? Yeah. So gender, we're all over this, Alan. We've launched the Women in Pension series this year and I would encourage advisors the the videos of our previous webinars are up on the website. Go and have a look at them. I know it's very cliched, but women approach life generally different to men and we're seeing that across pension planning, pension saving and retirement planning. So we know that there's a pot gap and we know that that's down to different employment choices and career breaks. So that's a bit hard enough to crack. We don't want to get into that yet. What we do want to focus on is some of the other aspects where women are different to men, particularly around feeling uncomfortable talking about my finances. 42% of women feel uncomfortable talking to friends and family about finance versus 29% of men. So I don't want you to tell what you're earning, what you have with your friends and family, but at least have a conversation about how you're managing your money. And that brings us back to Morgan Houses Money Stories. You and I could, we should have the same money in our pocket today, Alan, but what you're doing is different to what I'm doing. That's fine. But let's have a conversation and let's think about planet. Generally, women have better ideas about how they want to live in retirement. So how they want to spend that time. They're more certain and they have a plan, but they may not be financially prepared for it. Whereas the guys tend to be different. So I think looking at it from a gender lens is really important. Generation, I love it, I really do. And and what we see is younger clients are further away from the milestone of retirement. So they're less invested in it. They don't think about it as much. So when we talk about those 3 pillars, being financially prepared, being socially connected and being mentally prepared or purposefully busy, younger people score those much lower than people closer to retirement and that too much. But it's real proof of life gets better with age. So if I'm further away from it and I just think it's a big daunting here, we audacious goal, I push it away and I don't think about it. Whereas the closer I get and the more real it becomes, the easier it is for me to understand this. And that's why I think having a second life questionnaire, having a second life conversation with somebody who's 50 plus is obviously going to be a lot easier than somebody younger. So measure your story and figure out when you're talking, when you're talking. And the last one that I really love is geography, experience of life in Ireland is different all around this country. And, and you know, through the pandemic, I moved from being a dub out to county lithium. I, I live in a lovely lithium now and, and it's really up my eyes to life in, in rural Ireland. And and pros and cons aside, what we're seeing in our research is the attitude to retirement and the experience of retirement in kind of Dulster is different to Leinster and that's different to Leinster.

You know, you talk about gender etcetera and those some of those things we're aware of, but the geography side of The thing is, is a brand new to me. I'm fascinated that you're going to get a different attitude a few counties over than here. Yeah. So look at it again, it'll be no surprise to to our advisors on there's more wealth on the eastern seaboard. OK, so people in Leinster are, you know, a little bit more certain about retirement and a little bit more they they probably score stronger on the financial planning and readiness for retirement. Volunteer work is stronger in Connot Ulster. So again, just just being out and about, I just see community groups and things like that. Maybe I wasn't aware of in Dublin, maybe I wasn't paying attention to till I moved to the country, I'm not sure. But there are clear differences and you know, that's what we like about it because it isn't one-size-fits-all for advisers, never mind for their clients. So we want to be able to tailor reports that makes better sense to somebody in Munster versus somebody in conduct. So again, I just think to bring in retirement into focus Report was written for our advisors. It's a good guide to help them navigate and think about the stories they need to tell to build that emotional connection. But it's written in plain English, so it's good enough to give to a client. And there's a lot in it. I still flick through it and come to different sections when I want to think about or talk about a certain part. So I think it's one that you could use time and time again. So so it's definitely worth looking at. So we have a questionnaire that's available on the website. We have our retirement and bringing retirement in focus report, but we have another tune as well. We do, we have our retirement chats and, and these are absolutely fantastic. They're short videos of people who are too and through that journey. So it's very fresh for them and they're talking about their own experience. We, we have quite a few videos on there, but the new ones that we recorded this year we worked with again, with Brian Mooney and with Sonia Lennon. So some people will know Sonia from her fashion and her retail days. But Sonia does a lot of work in advocacy and she's very keen on gender issues. But she's actually, she won't mind me telling you she's of an age now where she was starting to think about retirement and pension and pivoting her career. And we happened to meet her. So again, the timing was right that we forged this, this, this relationship. So Sonia really wants to talk about how life gets better with age, and that's why she's working with us on on that pillar, if you like, of Second Life. So Sonia and Brian interviewed people, sat around and had a chat, and they talked about things like that first day, Michael out cleaning the patio. He hasn't gone back since. But what do you do on the first day? And what is that sense of freedom? Yeah, because you're not watching the clock, but intrepidation because they don't have the security of the routine anymore. And how do you navigate that? We have other videos in there about pivoting. So we've a couple, Greg and Bridget and they retired at different times and they were navigating this and some of it was in the pandemic and and pre the pandemic. But how did they start to use their skills? And both of them went back for reeducation and they are busier now than when they were working full time because they're on different community groups. So, but across the videos, there's a range of stories, a range of experiences, a range of backgrounds. So again, I just think there's something in that for everyone. You'll eventually find the story that resonates with you and helps you to get on. So back to your point, it's not that we expect advisors to be experts now at life coaching. Start sharing the videos. Start using them.

So I get the again, go back to the point of Second Life and the career Better with age. With great respect. You're a marketeer, you're you're living in research, you're living in storytelling, you're living in messages. The disconnect sometimes can be with the advisor in the day-to-day stuff. So we're going to play a clip of one of the retirement charts. But before we do that, I'd love to ask the audience if they wouldn't mind but one or three one of the following 3 words into the chat. I'm just curious that when we talk about the concept of Second Life and talk about this, this emotional connection and so I suppose important that customers are saying it's important, are you comfortable with it? Are you unsure with it or do you think it's grand? So I'd ask you just to put in comfortable grand or unsure and we'll play that clip now and we'll come back in a second.

Certainly changes. I mean, for the first time in your in in your life, you're not working to the clock. But the wonderful thing about retirement is it opens up all these new opportunities and you rediscover those parts of yourself because you are the sum of your old parts opportunities. And you rediscover those parts of yourself, because you are the sum of your old parts. Love it. Thank you. So really interesting some of the, the words coming in. There's there's a lot of comfortable coming in with which is great And for those who are comfortable, fantastic. Both conversations are are going well and please let us know how they're going. There's a fair few Onshores here. So for the Onshores, please reach out to ourselves or reach out to your business manager. We have a lot of content, a lot of guidance that we can support in these conversations. But we do think it's a, it's a really important aspect of the financial advice process and and of the plan. And there are grands in there, typical Irish turbo grand. It'll be fine. But we would encourage you, you know, Second Life, it's about building that emotional connection. It's about getting that holistic plan and it's making sure that with the right path to planning, combining the product, the fund, the strategy with the emotional side, like life does get better with Asian, we can really prepare customers for a better journey to and through retirement. And also it's a great retention tool as well. We've heard anecdotally from many advisors that when these conversations start, start early. When it gets to the point that a transaction may be happening from a pre retirement product, post retirement product, there's a great emotional connection and the customer, it's very sticky.

So that's the second life. There was a platform, I said at the beginning that retirement is changing. So the exact words that it's no longer destination's process have changed. How do we know it's changing? We know because we do a lot of research. Like I said, we we interview probably about 5000 or more people a year between the retirement pulsar qualitative researcher or research with advisors. So we're pretty certain it's changing and that we have evidence through the research. We're bringing forward the voice of the retiree. We're listening to people and they're telling us how it's changing. What's the biggest change we're seeing through that research? For me, it goes back to that idea of transition. I think people are no longer seeing 65 as a marker and then I'll stop. They're beginning to change their habits in the Lido through it. So I, I, I think key ages for people are 60 into 70 because you're full of transition. And I'd go so far as saying 50 into 60 because you should be preparing for that transition. And in that transition, Alan, we're talking about taking your foot off the gas a wee bit. So if you have the opportunity to start working part time in your current job and maybe using some of your time to build up some of that community involvement or try in a different role. We've got people with various different skill sets that get into education. So they become lecturers in, in some of the colleges and, and they they step into teaching support and different jobs because you've an awful lot to give. You've got a lot of skills built up. So that transition is really important. That's a really important part of how it's changing.

So. To introduce you at the beginning as our head of marketing, so you know your campaigns are storytelling, but you also look out for a business intelligence team, which is looks at a lot of data that's going on. So I'm amazed you haven't given me a stat or two. So surely there's a stat or two in there about how retirement is changing and people's perceptions of. Yeah. Yeah, there are. There are tons of statistics, but I've actually kept it to just two today because I wanted to tell a story rather than bombard people with with numbers. The first statistic that I'm going to talk about, one that I suppose I I'm passionate about, is the fact that 42% of people surveyed tell us they're feeling anxious when they think about retirement. Does that go back to your point about it's far away? It's complicated. I'll I'll ignore it, but then when it's getting closer they get anxious because they have ignored it and it's almost too late. Yeah, and and it's the too late bit that I personally worry about. And that's what I want to champion the industry to change. OK. Because I think to have a second life that is better with age, you need to start planning young. I told you I I started saving for my first pension at 27, didn't think about how I'd occupy my time in retirement until I get into my mid 30s. But I started lecturing and I started doing a few other things that there's opportunities. I love my job here. I'm not going anywhere. But the sense of having opportunities is really important. So for me, I think the fact that 42% are feeling anxious and therefore deferring means they're doing themselves out of it. They're they're not looking after their future self and buying into the dream. So if I had one career ambition before I finish in this job, Alan, it would be to get that statistic down that people aren't feeling anxious about retirement. Yeah, it's something that's further away and I'll get to it and I'm doing things. But I'm also looking forward to it because it does get better and the people that are closer to it are telling us it's it's a great place to be. Sure. But we've a collective responsibility to do that. So I'm I'm in the industry now 24125 years. For those 2425 years I've seen all companies tried to drive up engagement around pensions and they've all pretty much taken a swing and missed. Now I accept them. Again, I'm biased here that Second Life changes the narrative. Yes, it's more engaging than a pension, but how do we go about that?

I I think it's about inspiring more conversations. So obviously advisors are going to have conversations with their clients. We're having conversations here with the industry, with advisors and trying to change that narrative. It's it's nerdy, but talk about it at family parties. Check in with your friends. Have they thought about this? There's a couple of books I've read that really, I feel put me on the right track for it. So when is the 100 year life? And that really makes you find a cop on that. This is going to be a longer phase of my life than I thought. So A, is my pot going to sustain me? And B, to know what I want to do, what I want to achieve in that. So the hundred of your life is definitely worth reading and and trying to get people to to to think about that. And Morgan has his money stories because the pot you need, Alan, could be very different to the pot I need. And leave aside our different families. It's that you might have bigger ambitions and more expensive ambitions than me, but it's just that you've got the right pot for you and that you've gone and checked back in with your advisor to look at that plan and to see when we set that plan up, is it still relevant.

OK. So you mentioned once that anxiety, anything else about the anxiety side of things? Yeah. Well, it's it's related, but 49% of people that we surveyed said they won't plan their retirement till they get there. And that really gets me going. We plan more for our holidays that we plan for our retirement and it's such a milestone and it is such a golden period to be in if you put a bit of planning in it. We sadly, through our research, here's some sad stories of people that feel overwhelmed, disconnected, a little bit lost. And that comes back to the fact that they they didn't put the planning in. And had they known that, that was a potential that could have done something to avoid it. And that's why I want to raise this conversation. I just want to say be kind and be good to your future self by thinking about these things now, by putting some wheels into motion and you'll transition better and transition. Better. But even if you transition better, we're also saying you're transitioning into a longer period now as well. And that's key to this is that financial plans are great, but you have to think of a financial plan that's going to get you through. Our longevity is increasing. It absolutely is and, and the hunch of your life will will tell you all about that. And there's statistics coming out of the Internet left, right and centre on it. But think about the brass tacks of that longevity. So we've done a lot of work with Mary Bright. She's Phoenix, head of social planning and policy. Very, very interesting lady. Lots of good stories. But I think what she opened our eyes to, Alan in the last couple of months is that we have more people turning 50 than turning 5. Wow. OK, So just think about that. Yeah. More people turning 50 than turning 5. South, the market is getting significantly bigger. Glorious, glorious time for our industry because there are now more people in the market for what we're doing. And that brings a headache because we have to have more conversations about Second Life. We have to inspire more people to plan. But equally it's, it's an opportunity as well. Absolutely, market is getting bigger. Absolutely.

It would be remiss of me, though, to talk about Second Life and talk about planning without touching on some of the the harder stories, the harder things that people have faced. And we're going to work on these later in the year. But for all the plan you have, Alan, things can go wrong. So we have talked to retirees who had a great plan and hit ill health or company owners that hit a very tough time and, you know, didn't have the resource they thought they were going to have or sadly bereavements. So again, I think it's all the more reason that people are in this planning cycle. So if you think about it, if if I asked anybody to map out the a life journey, you talk about education first job, travel, family, home. Yeah, career progression. But the word retirement doesn't go into that. And we need to build that into that journey. The people are thinking of it, that it is something. And I think back to the trend of unretiring. Personally, I'd love to retire for a little while and unretire. I'd love to take a Sabashi Ellen and have that time to experience some of those golden experiences and then get back into work again. And, and in that sense, then I don't mind working into my 70s. Sure, if I have the stamina for it. But that that points towards the cycle of planning, replanning and of course resilience as well. You know, you mentioned some business owners where things might not go according to plan. So that's why touching with the advisor, getting the plan or making sure you get the connection between the emotional side and financial side so important. I think so, absolutely.

OK. Well, we might just do before we get out to the next section, Tara is just that there are one or two questions coming through here and there's one very quick one. What's the name of the brochure again? Is it on your website? Well, there's two, there's one. Sorry, no. It's OK. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll do the show on Ted with the question. So the that's called bringing retirement into focus and that's on our website, so you can download a copy there. And the other one that we think is quick and easy and really effective is the Second Life questionnaire. Again, that's on the the website to download and and to use.

Sure. You mentioned money stories. There's a question here that Fairpoint complexity and difficulty with engagement are both long running issues. What are the money stories and how does this help? OK, I, I'm pretty sure money stories come from Morgan Hazel's book. So go and have a read of it guys. If if you haven't seen it already, it's the psychology of money and it's really about how, how we deal with money is very individual. OK, so I, I, even in the paperless one, they're talking about giving kids pocket money and teaching them how to use their pocket money. So you've got to save some, you can have a treat with some and you give some towards the household basic routine. There was a lot of talk and news talk I think maybe last week about whether you charge the young adults living at home housekeeping. I think you should, I think you should be teaching them how to pay their way and how to save and how to get on. So that's what money stories are all about. Who Who taught you how to manage money? Absolutely. I, you know, and the world we're in at the moment, two years ago I thought that Revolute for Juniors was the greatest invention in the world. Now I realize that if they run out of money, they just text me to top it up. So they don't have the, the budget management side of things. Yeah. And it's it's an important thing because not they want to say when we were kids, when we were kids, you went town with a fiber in your pocket and you have to make it. Now they just text. Yeah. And I just think back to longevity, Alan, if we are going to live longer, look, I, I enjoy socializing, I enjoy meeting my friends. I want to make sure that that pot is going to to fund that for a lot longer than I thought years ago. So funny story is really important. Just a quick technical one as well, guidance on sharing the videos from a tech point of view. So our videos are on our website and they're also on YouTube. And so they're shareable, but we'll we'll get back to that person. But you can go on. Sorry. Yeah, no, absolutely. They're they're they're fully shareable from YouTube. And what we'll do is we'll send up a follow up and we might do it next until next week, but we'll send up a follow up from this webinar and we'll include all those helpful hints and links and we'll recap on the tools and just to make sure that everybody's comfortable. But if you've any problem, please lift the phone, lift the phone to your business manager or drop me an e-mail and I'll get back to you about how to do that project. They're very shareable.

OK? Oh no, they're just very interesting one on the, on the videos. And it's probably a moment to, to go out for my own team if I can. Attention spans. I'm watching videos on the Internet now are very short. So the audience only watches for about 6 seconds. And if you don't catch me in 6 seconds, I'll move on. These videos are getting watched in their entirety, so for the people that want to watch something that have watched the whole lot, huge engagement. So good to use the customers that they are going to look at these.

Excellent. So Second life is, is, is the concept and the career guidance. No doubt retirement is changing. We see that advisors probably see that with their customers directly as well, but the research is backing that up. Let me get on to what are the opportunities for advisors with all this change and all these campaigns etcetera. How can they turn this into a amended to engage their customers and to grow their business? OK. So there's lots of opportunities. What I want to focus on 2 today, OK. One opportunity is the fact that our market is growing and the second opportunity is the need for advice, OK? So if we start with the first one there, the market is growing. Remember the population is changing. We have more people turning 50 than five and people are living longer. So our audience, the people that need our services now there's more of them and they're in that phase for longer. So we have a bigger market to play with. So that's really important. So back to prospect and back to referrals. If you're having a good engagement with a client, ask them to recommend it to their friends and family to grow out that business because they're there now. There is an appetite for it. Pension coverage is is still at about 50%. Half of the population have a personal pension separate to the state. So with those guys, we need to talk more about adequacy. So OK, you've got coverage, but is it going to do you for this longer retirement. And then we need to look back to the guys that don't have a pension and start talking about why they need as a youngster to look at their money stories and start investing into their future self.

Very good. When you look at those areas though, where would you, I suppose, direct an advisor to go? In terms of growing their business, I'm a big fan of referral. I think if I've had a good experience of something, Alan, whether that's a restaurant, a financial planner, a holiday and I talk to you about it, you're more likely to think of that as an opportunity for yourself. So I just think that referral business is very strong. So benefits of advice as well. Yeah, yeah. So again, Brokers Ireland released a fantastic report. Mine, mine is doggy ears because I I've read it like scribbles on it and I've read it so many times. So guys, if you haven't read it, I'd encourage you to go and get a copy and read it. It's uplifting and there's a bit of a reality check in it too. So you know, on the whole it says there is a good future for the industry of advice, but there are things we need to do to change. OK. So what I would say is. I can show my age now during that ad. I don't know what a tracker mortgage is. So I hope some of you are laughing and and are with me. You remember it. And for anybody who doesn't, you may have to look for it in YouTube. But it was basically the central bank's idea of trying to explain a tracker mortgage to to people when when they came on the Irish market. I think we should be right in the same ad for I don't know what a pension is because we work in the industry and we know it, but actually for people out there, A, it's complex and B, there's that ostrich headless and syndrome. They don't want to know. We speak a different language. We really do. So I just think with advice, it needs to be broken down and simplified. You can build it up if some clients are quite sophisticated and do want to know about their financial instruments and about their investments. But for a lot of them, they just want to know am I all right? Am I on track? Am I doing the right things? So I think is. This in order that's what I wanted to tell me I. Think so. And on that point, again, back to our research, we've just come out of some focus groups recently and we were talking to customers who are advised and the topic wasn't advice. OK, that's not what we're asking about, but it came up with the conversation. And I just, I just took a couple of lines out of the research that I thought was really, really interesting for, for advisors on, on webinar this morning to hear. So customers are chatting and they're telling us about their advisors and they're saying, I don't like to hear too much of that stuff. It made me anxious. So I would go for an advisor who I know I can trust so I can't underestimate building up that relationship balance so I feel I trust. You time and time again. Yeah, and I leave it with you. So there really is high value in advice. I'm Didgeri, and if I've got an advisor who I can trust, I'd leave it to them. So again, a bit of responsibility on the advisor because I'm deferring decisions to you, but it's really important.

And the last one, I'd say, and anybody who knows who wouldn't be surprised to hear me say this under advice, is segmentation. Alan. OK, yeah, retirement isn't the same for everybody. Our money stories aren't the same, we are different. So I would encourage advisors to look at their client base and start to think about how do I approach different groups of people with a different story that's going to hook them in and get them emotionally connected. OK. And by this I'm thinking some of the obvious groups are women. We've talked about the Women of Pension series. Please, guys, go back and look at the webinars. Get in touch. We'll help you with some of the stats, the stats and bring in retirement into focus. But women approach it differently to men. I, I imagine a lot of advice is to couples, but there's a different way you can probe her versus probe him and just make sure that you're talking to the audience in a way that's relevant and going to hook them in. I talked about Gen. Z, the 18 to 25 year olds. These are the groups that rate themselves as investors more than anybody else. They claim they're investors. And the first time we saw that, we thought that research must be wrong. And it's coming through time and time again. And you look at the Revolute app. Yes. Investments. To stock shares ETF's crypto. Which brings a new challenge for our business because we need to be able to take that on board and say, hey, talk to me about your investment strategy. Now let me widen the conversation and show you what else you should be doing in that investment strategy. So it's back to segmenting your audience, right message, right customer, right time. I learned it 25 years ago marketing and it's still valid today.

It also shows the value of unintended consequences, the customer not knowing what they don't know, having that guidance, having that experience is, is so important. And again, having a 16 year old who's unrevoluted and looking at stocks and shares and being pitched crypto every second week, I totally appreciate that and it and it is really important. So also the, the, the market it is pivoting, but we we need to make sure that we're not just the technicians that we have that emotional side, that's where the customer is really going to engage with. Us that's going to win out you know the old cliche people don't remember what you did for them they don't remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel absolutely. So look again, our industry is complex clients are going to leave our offices and and forget a lot of that conversation, but they're going to remember I trusted Alan. I felt safe I I like the advice he was given and I really appreciate that he was thinking about what I wanted to do and not just how much I have. Exactly. Yeah.

And there's, there's an interesting question here. It's a question and a comment. There's also an issue, you mentioned longevity. There's also an issue with people having children later and the need to work into our 70s, thereby extending the retirement age. So what are your your views? Are we seeing that come through? Yeah, yeah. This is a huge one and we are seeing it in research. But I think, again, the 100 Year life touches on that. We're going to have intergenerational situations that people need to navigate. So we see it in women and pensions and we call it the sandwiched generation where women of my age are still raising their own family, but they're stepping in to take care of older relatives. And it's not necessarily really just your parents, Alan, because sometimes like maybe your cousin's gone to Australia and you're looking after your aunt as well. And there's huge pressure on that group who are trying to manage both sides of the life spectrum. It's about being kind. It's about offering. Support. Yeah, Sonia Lennon talks about it. She says when somebody's glass is full, you cannot pour more water in there. You've got to take some out before you put some in. So if we're trying to give advice to somebody in that situation, we need to help them debunk it and and step it down because the situation is a situation they have to care for the kids, they have to care for the grandparents. But how can we help them around that actual situation I think is really important. Yeah, very significant.

So when you look at those opportunities are very significant to the advisor, those opportunities blended then with I suppose what we're offering why Standard Life and in my view Standard Life it's about being retirement specialist. So that's making sure we have a proposition that's broad enough to cover all the key aspects. Whereas product funds, support, content, service, these are the aspects that that are supposed to come together to make sure that the customer has a very good journey to and true retirement to make sure that the customer stays with the advisor has a very good outcome. So we often look at the as a triangle where we have the advisor, we have the provider and with the up in the middle and the three of us are start two of us working together to make sure that the customer gets a good outcome. And that's that's the priority. Secondly is the the voice of the retiree. So hopefully you're getting an idea of some of the research that we do in terms of going out, talking to customers and really getting an understanding of what they're going through and very importantly, what their concerns are and how they're changing. And then trying to take those insights and bring them into content that's usable by the advisor market. And lastly is a partnership approach. We very much have a partnership approach with advisors. Our job is to work with advisors in conjunction to deliver that proposition to customers so they get that good outcome.

Now before we finish up, give me some of your key takeaways. You talked about threes earlier on, so I got to finally might have three points. So I and. And you just talked about Triangle Island, so we're all about. Yeah, we're all set threes. I have three lists and then each list I have three points. So guys, if you have your pens and paper at the ready, here, here we go. So my top takeaways from all of the research and, and the fact that I've totally immersed myself in the idea of retirement and the journey to and through my first list is about the second list life and the three points on second life and having a retirement that gets better at age is financial planning and coming back to check that plan and replanning that financial plan because we are living longer and we do have other responsibilities. We've older kids still living with us. We have grandparents to take care of. So that financial plan is the fundamental part of having a good retirement. OK. And checking that in the second part of having a good second life is saying socially connected. We're social beings. We like the interaction, we like small chat. It doesn't all have to be deep friendships, but work provides a lot of that for us. So if we stop work, where do we draw that from? And the last point under my first list on Second Life is being mentally prepared or staying purposefully busy. So back to Mitch Anthony's 21 segments of the week. How are you staying purposefully busy? Because you deserve that feeling of satisfaction. I've just put in a good day there and I can sit back now and have a treat.

My second list is really around how retirement is changing. It's a transition. It's not a full stop. And are we getting ready for transition And, and the transitions happen all the time. It's not just one transition. So how are we understanding that and how are we relating that back out to clients that they understand this is OK, this is what everybody's experiencing. You're thinking of going back to work. That's fine. Lots of people do it. Why are you going back and go in with your eyes wide open pace. We played and clicked there and I just think it's it's warm and fuzzy and it just summarizes it. I can now live like at my own pace. The alarm might go off at 7:00, but I can hit snooze. I'm I'm conditioned, I'm with the bright mornings. I'm waking at 5:00, but I can pick up my book if I want to. So that is glorious. And that led us into better at age. So there's my three things on why retirement is changing. It is about transitions, it's about pace, and it's about getting better at age.

My last list then is really about the opportunities for the advisers. OK. And that comes down to the fact that our market is growing. This is a glorious time to be in the industry we are in. We have more people to turn 50 than turning 5 and they're going to live longer. They really need us. Back to the idea of needing advice, it's still a complex market. I need advice and I need it frequently through this journey. So to get me there, I need to replan and I need the advice to get me there. And my last point on advice is that segmentation. Tailor your stories, tailor how you approach clients depending on the situation, their gender, their geography, where they're at in life so that it feels relevant to me and important.

Brilliant, Tara. Thanks

Brilliant, Tara. Thanks so much for your time folks. Thank you for joining us today and hopefully you get a sense of it was the concept of better age and some of the supports and opportunities that are there for the advisor market. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is the second of our webinar series. There are two more to go on the 16th of August and the 23rd of August and 16th of August, Pat Manley, our pension development manager would come on and talk to us about the corporate investment opportunity. Again, we touched on this in the first webinar just a little bit, and that is available on the website if you want to look back on it. But we think there's a big opportunity in terms of what's happening with interest rates at the moment. And a lot of corporates sitting on large deposits with their banks and the banks just haven't stepped up to the mark and returned with regards to interest rates. So there's a big opportunity there. So we'll take you through the opportunity, but also the tax advantages as well. Then the last thing on the 23rd, Rory MacDonald, our investment Development Manager, will be talking about active and passive ESG investing. Every day I come in the radio or sorry, I come in, in the car on the radio. There's something about wildfire, something about storms. This is a growing, growing area. And there's an absolute wave coming both from a regulatory point of view, but also from a customer demand point of view. So please do go on to the website, Richard, for those two webinars as always. And thank you for taking time to come and join us this morning and look forward to seeing you soon. Take care. Bye bye. Cheers. Bye bye.

For our Women and Pensions webinar, as always, thank you for taking the time to come and join us. My name is Alan McCarthy and in a moment I'm going to be introducing you Dictionaid McEvoy and Mary Bright, who will be joining us in the conversation. The Women and Pensions webinar series is designed to drive engagement and conversation around a very important topic, both retirement and some of the gender gaps that we have when it comes to the female participation in this area. The first webinar series was talking about how do we drive conversation, how do we drive engagement. Today we're going to build on that a little bit by looking at some of the, sorry, looking at the gender gap, because there is a gender gap and it's a problem and a problem we have to deal with. Secondly, we're going to look at who are the key stakeholders we need to engage and how can we influence them? And thirdly, what are the actions we need to take?

I'm sure you're aware that life is a life savings company and we specialize in retirement. And to state that we specialize in retirement, we need to make sure that from a propositional point of view, we're not just talking about pensions from a a product and a fund point of view. But actually we're looking at the entire journey that customers go through. And it's quite an emotional journey from planning to travelling through retirement and and enjoying retirement as well. In order to do that, how we, I suppose, gather insights and information is that we go out and we survey people and we talk to people as they're going through that journey. And it gives us a lot of of insights into some of the challenges that they're facing, some of the the concerns, some worries that they have absolutely is financial and financial planning is a big part of it. But also there's a very big emotional part to this as well. Finding purpose in retirement, making sure that we have time for 2000 hours once we do stop working. And even how we stop working. It's changed completely over the last 10 or 15 years. We're used to be very much a a point of time. Now it's a process of change.

Part of the advantage of being part of the Phoenix Group is that we can rely on the insight we get from the Irish market. We can also look at other research we get from from other markets. And what's fascinating to me is that the problems are all the same. No matter what jurisdiction you look at, no matter what market is, ultimately we're living longer, we're not saving enough, and there is a female participation problem and funding problem. So in order to help me go through the conversation, I'm delighted that Sinead McAvoy is joining me today. Sinead is the Head of Technical Solutions for Standard Life in Ireland and the leading expert in retirement solutions in the Irish market. And I'm sure many of the advisors on board today, we'll recognize it from all the webinars and events that we hold. In addition to this, Mary sits on, on, sorry, Sinead sits on any committees in that industry level. I'm also delighted to be joined by Mary Bite, who's beaming in from Bristol today on another beautiful day. Mary. Mary, you're very welcome. Mary leads Phoenix social affairs strategy and delivery, and she works with a wide range of stakeholders, including government and issues relating to long term savings and pensions, employment, social policy, and of course, our aging society. In 2018, she was appointed by the Women and Quality Select Committee as a representative advisor to their inquiry into age discrimination at work. So Mary, you're very welcome. Thank you for coming to join us.

Before we start, just a little bit of housekeeping for me, if you don't mind, as we go through the, the conversation down at the bottom right or sorry, just over the right hand side, you'll see there's AQ and a section. I'd encourage you at any stage, if you have a question or even a comment or a torch where you agree or disagree on some of the topics that are coming up, please post it there. I'll be keeping an eye on my screen down here and I'll be posting any questions or comments to Mary and Sinead as as we go through. An important point as well as we talk about women in pensions is that while it's classed are titled Women in pensions. Delighted that looking at the representation before we logged in that there's about 4045% male representation on the webinar today, which is really important because I would like to start off, this is not a female issue. It's not a female problem, it's an industry problem. It's a societal problem that we have to solve together. So it's really important that we have participation from from both genders.

So getting straight into it, Sinead, very keen that we might have a little recap on on the previous webinar, but the research shows again and again that people who plan have better outcome, which intuitively makes sense. However, what was kind of surprising to me that there's a Halo impact for people who plan. The people who plan obviously have a better outcome, but they have an immediate financial bonus today because they feel better about their finances today. You might just expand on that a little bit.

Yeah. No, no, absolutely. Yeah. Our, our research tells us that straight away as soon as someone does take out a pension that there is an immediate kind of emotional benefit to that they feel more Co confident and happy about their future. I suppose with all of us, there is that niggle there, you know, we all know we need to have a pension and it is, it's kind of on the back of our heads and it's something we need to sort out. And then as soon as we do, like obviously assuming you're not automatically enrolled in one, but as soon as you have one in place, straight away there is is that kind of confidence and you feel happier about our future, your own future. But I suppose the other kind of takeaways from our last session was that, you know, we're very much influenced by our early role models when it comes to our whole attitude to finances, money and even pensions. And typically that's going to be apparent and that it kind of sets the scene and, and kind of your outlook kind of for how how you approach your, your, your own money and financial, your, your, your money and your finances. And then I guess lastly then I suppose in terms of females specifically the importance of kind of simple messaging as we know, like we do lose kind of, I think females especially a lot because like as a pensions industry, we, we, we tend to kind of talk a lot of jargon, a lot of technicalities, tax relief, all that sort of stuff. And we lose people. And the key with all to my mind especially is trying to get females to emotionally engage with their pensions. And here at Standard Life, we, we do have tools to do that. We have our Second Life campaign, our second Life questionnaire. And those kind of are, are kind of two key tools that kind of help maybe females to kind of emotionally engage in that second life, to imagine that second life and kind of go, OK, and just make it more tangible. Because when you kind of make it more tangible and they kind of think about what that second life will look like and start kind of making a plan around it, then the pension is just secondary.

So we have obviously we've, we've low engagement, we know that. But going back to the point about your, your early life, how it affects and your, your view in the world, it's almost like there's momentum in a particular way or there's not momentum in a particular way. So that indicates that there needs to be an intervention or some type of early engagement. Mary, is that your experience in the UK as well? Is that that one of the key issues from the start?

Absolutely. So it's really interesting that when women start saving into their pension, if they start saving into their pension, they're more likely to pay a higher contribution. So women are women who are engaged, are broadly aware. I think the the thing for me is that our lovely tools tend to work on a trajectory that is a straight line that is largely built on a traditional male life. And my career has been really squiggly and I don't know about anybody else's, but it's, it's had time out, it's had reduced hours. And so when I look at those tools, I need somebody who can talk about squiggliness to me because engagement communication needs to be relevant to the individual. And I think if we can think, oh, actually you're thinking about how can we make that work for you? How can we ensure you have a future that you want in a present you enjoy? And that's, it's not necessarily saying the same things to everybody regardless of their gender. And, and I know that that's probably preaching to the apps that you converted for those people on this call. But I think, yeah, engage early, engage often, and make sure it's relevant.

Engage early, engage often. As people go through the journey, is there a kind of a sweet spot where that engagement becomes more important because there are distractions in life, as you said, you know, life happens, things happen. I think it's Mike Tyson who said everyone's got a plan. Did he get a punch in the face? And we all get regular punches in the face because life happens. So where is it? Is there a sweet spot there that we have to have? Heightened engagement, shall we say?

Yeah, we, we were mentioning behavioural insights earlier before this, this school started and there's some really interesting research that says that each decade birthday that you reach, you kind of have a wake up moment. Oh, I'm 20, I need to kind of think more seriously now. Oh, I'm 30 thinking about a family. I've probably left home by now. I'm 40, properly grown up, need to start saving 50. I'm entering my second-half time to really focus. So I'd say if if you're thinking about engaging with clients, understanding those, those nudge points can be really helpful for women in terms of importance pre family getting, getting that habit early. And if we can address people, women's savings in their in their teens and in their 20s, we've got that magic for compound interest that will work and that can solve some future problems. But the generation I'm most concerned about is the 45 to 55 year olds who potentially have been out of work for longer, have had gaps, who still have an opportunity to change things, who could choose to work more to go back into the workforce, who could choose to share care in a different way with other family members or in other ways. But if we don't talk to those 45-55 year olds now, they will be stuffed because in the professional terms, because we want to live for longer and have on average 35% less to do so.

And is that because that, you know, go back to my knowledge of the sweet spot, Dave, you mentioned planning for family, etcetera. They get it 45-55, but at that stage they might be caring for older relatives. They're still looking after the family, yet this is the moment where they should be funding the most to make sure they get the advantage of compound interest over the next 20 years. And there's obviously a lot of distractions.

Yeah, and it, and it and it's hard, but we know that women are more likely to sacrifice their own income to help others. They're more likely to sacrifice their own employment to help others. And this is, it's, it's usually a family situation. So encouraging the, the family and the widest family to have that discussion and to think, well, actually, we don't want mum to be the one who's left alone without money. We all need to pick up a bit of this because if we can share that, then we can do something about it. If we just rely on the women to do the sandwich care to pick it all up and to be the ones that are, I'll just pay for this for you or pay for that for you. It all has a little impact that reduces and that's where we get to the 35% because each little percent adds up.

Yeah. And that 35% is a an extraordinary large number. So Yoursri estimates the average pension income of retired women is 35% less than that of retired man. The big gaps, when we talk about gaps, it's it's extremely large. So if we know there's an issue here, we know there's a gap, we know there's a, a low engagement, you know, there's no simple fix to this. This is multifaceted. We need to change our approach. We know that. So when we started looking at the causes here we have motherhood, we've divorced, we've caring responsibilities, we've employment sector, these are all making it difficult to, to save. But on top of that, because you mentioned earlier ranchenade, we're a, an industry of complexifiers. I think we speak a different language. We have all these structures, we've all these rules and even people in the industry get confused about all the rules. So where do we go to? How do we start looking at these causes and building on them? Yeah, sorry, solving them, not building on them. That's a. That's a foe.

Yeah, no like that. And there is like the there's no simple fix, as he said. And, and there's going to be loads of, of different kind of solutions. Like I, I suppose as an industry, the pensions industry industry, as I said earlier, we do leave like kind of lose people in complexity. But I suppose there's a lot of change going on in the pension industry. Not right now with IR 2 even say we're getting rid of our, you know, executive pension plans with simpler solutions, pure essays. So I think now and, and, and when you're going through change and as well as that we're introducing an auto enrolment scheme and, you know, it's, it's kind of making these kind of new arrangements because pensions are really slow to change. They've been very similar to since the 1970s. It's, it's now because change is ongoing that we can kind of make sure that pensions like pensions are more kind of gender proofed. Stay with the auto enrolment scheme. The Joint Directors Committee met at the beginning of May and we made some recommendations to government, the Department of Social Protection in terms of income thresholds because their minimum income was €20,000. And then the age, the age thresholds was aged 23. So automatically that's kind of going to obviously it's like lower and there is younger people, but also women would have been a big issue there that they were automatically being excluded for this auto enrollment scheme. So straight away those were recommendations that were made to the Department of Social Protection and they, they will likely be taken on board. And I think it's, it's kind of now and you know, it's the pensions industry, it's Insurance Ireland. So it's, it's now we have like as a pension, you know, provider, we have the, we have a chance, we have an opportunity to kind of get our messages across and make sure that they're taken on board before an auto enrollment scheme is embedded and before like, and, and we see now with the PRSA a much simpler solution. You're not talking about salaries, you're just saying here's a fund, how much can you put in? And then you start talking about a plan and your retired life. And you're not talking about the tax reliefs or anything like that. It's, it's kind of so, so I think, I think we are changing bit by bit and we'll see more change in that. And I think, yeah.

So when we're getting closer to these causes, obviously pension design is an issue, but all enrollment is helping, Changes in legislation is helping, but we still has a role of industry leaders to keep pushing the government on this systematic change.

Absolutely. And, and even, you know, Standard Life, you know, through our advisor network, who, who, who, who will have a direct relationship with employers, even, and making sure that employers are aware that they're not just ticking a box and automatically enrolling people, that they're aware that all their, you know, their employees, females, part time workers, everyone is included in these arrangements. So, so there is and and that's kind of where we can get involved and help out our advisors who will have an employer client and also we as part of Insurance Ireland, you know, and, and just in general kind of communicating that. Message and that that's very interesting because there is, I don't want to be lit, but there are times I think employers can do it. And particularly I'm just getting this done because this is administration and I just, I'll stick this box and move on. And, and I know we'll talk about it later on a little bit, But so it's not just engaging the the employee, whether they're male or female, it's also engaging the employer to actually take a concerted effort to be engaged in this. So they're explaining to the employee benefits and how to to enroll and how to suppose for them properly. But that's a big ask as well though, isn't it?

Oh, it's, it's, it's massive, absolutely. And, and it's not going to change tomorrow. I, I think it's changing, but like slowly, but I think, you know, we've been talking about women in pensions since, since I joined, like since I started working in pensions. So, but I see now there is more change in the last number of years than there's ever been. And I think, you know, there is like the pensions authority insurance Ireland, there is a lot of kind of people talking about women and pensions and obviously the fact that females have much lesser pensions, 35% less. And it's not just at International Women's Day that they're talking about it. Sometimes you just used to be just that once a year, that token kind of let's chat about this, but, but now like we're doing it of May, we're doing a series of webinars and, and you see it, it's, it's, you see, you know, newspaper articles, you see a lot of the providers much more engaged because I suppose research now is, is, is a bigger thing than it was 10 or 15 years ago. And we're all kind of seeing it. And, and then when you see the 35% pension making difference, it's stark. And I think we all realize that, you know, females are 51% of the population. Why are our pension funds so low and what can we do to to fix this? And I think awareness is is is is is a starting point, at least as a minimum.

So I, I think it's really, you've got a great opportunity. We've got a really great opportunity because already with what you're planning on introducing with AE is better than the UK starting younger, including more people right from the get go, being able to learn from the auto enrolment and engagement with employers. What you've just said it the, the advisor has such an important role to help the employer choose the right scheme. And broadly we found there were sort of three types of a lawyer. There was one just wanted the cheapest and wanted to minimise their costs. And that's, you know, that's it's fine, but it's probably not going to be for a value add company that really prides itself on the engagement and the and the expertise. There was a group, a group of good organisations who wanted to be more, who are really hungry to understand. And then there's a small group of organisations who are really on it already. But what we found in, in now we've got 24 million people who are saving who weren't for in the UK and we've got those employers who say, what can I do? I can see my pay gap. I've not really thought about my pension gap. But what are the, what are the policies, Mary, that I can introduce that will help me do that? How do I change structurally change as an employer what I'm doing? And that, and that's kind of part of my role is to go and talk to the advisors and the consultants and work with their clients. So this, this is how we can encourage more people to save more, to have that better future. Because it's Mary, it's not just the right thing to do, shall we say, but also there is a benefit to the business as well in terms of, you know, people are looking for increased benefits now. And that's probably been happening, but COVID probably accelerated that over the last couple of years. And you know, flexibility, looking for benefits on pensions and health, but also it's very important for more attention and an engagement point of view as well. Are you finding that in the UK in your market?

Absolutely, if you can, it goes back to that engagement and relevance. If you can make your your clients, customers feel that they're important, that you understand them and and to acknowledge that they are. If we can do the extra things, that's how we keep them and they want to keep doing business with us because they're getting things that that are truly valuable for the individuals. You're right, the world has changed. We can't put the Genio flexible work back in the bottle and we've got more fathers now wanting to work flexibly and wanting to be at home with their children than ever. We've got more people, 50 plus, who want to work flexibly and in our own organization. It's. 50 plus that we get a greater percentage of men working part time than women all the way up until age 50. Women out index men on part time working and then say, oh actually no, I would like a day a week to do whatever. So we're really starting to see those changes come through in our statistics. And I think that it's it's it's fast forwarding, 9 out of 10 people in the UK want to work flexibly, 9 out of 10, well, yeah, but only two out of 10 employers offer it. So we've just got to play catch up. Disconnect, Yeah, disconnect.

So if we have a, a pension design issue put on the changing, we have changes in attitudes which are changing. But the very important part of this, Mary is longevity. We're we're living longer and we're healthier when we do get to a certain age. So we want typically more in life as well. How is that going to affect this this challenge? This is, this is, and it's one of the UN's macro trends, longevity. And it's going to change how we live, where we live, transport, how much we need to save. It's going to change the face of social care. It's changing the dependency ratios for us. It's changing how long people work for, how much they need to save and how they work. So if you're now, when in the UK, when the state pension age was introduced, only one in four people lived for longer to get the state pension. Now we've got people in the state pension for 15-20 years. And so to to fund that change and we've got to work for long. If you're going to live to 90, you're going to have to work for maybe 40 years, 50 years. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to do the same thing for. 50 years. So, OK, So what does that mean? It probably means that we're going to take career breaks, that we're going to re skill at the same time. We've got digital 4.0, we've got AI, we've got the, the rate, the race to net zero. We need our gas plumbers to become hydrogen pipe engineers. We need all of these things. And the 5th, the over 50s are around 30% of the workforce. So we we absolutely need those people. So as the, as the population changes, as demographics change, we've got to change our attitudes to age. We've got to stop saying you look good for your age. And Can you imagine saying that to a woman, you look really good given that you're a woman, Sinead? I mean, it's, it's, we have, we have this, these conceptions about age that are based in the past. And you started talking with we're, we're anchored by what happened before saying my, the female line of my family all die of heart attacks. I'm anchored in. I'm going to die of a heart attack anytime now. The fact is I'm on loads of heart medication so I'm unlikely to die and I've probably got 20-30 years in me. But for people who haven't looked at it, they don't know that, so they're not planning ahead, so they're not thinking, so they're writing themselves off. This internalised ageism is so strong. Nobody's going to want me. I can't do anything. I've, I've been out of the workforce for so long. I don't have any. But actually, you know, if you've brought up a family, if you've balanced the household budgets, if you've cared for somebody, if you've juggled all of that, you've got, you've got so many life skills that of course you're valuable. And frankly, the economy can't can't survive without the 50 plus anymore and individuals can't fund their futures. We've just got to start thinking differently. Longevity is a massive change coming to all of us.

It is. And it's really interesting you talk about that, that concept of I'm not valuable, I can't contribute anymore. The internal ageism. The internal, yeah, the internal ageism and but I suppose there's. External, the biggest barrier for everyone, I think. I don't think it's an external thing. I definitely think it's an internal thing. I think we all have that and especially females and, and, and that's something that we need to overcome certainly because and. Yeah, because as, as, as you mentioned, Mary, if you've been through life and again, all those ups and downs and punches in the face, there's this huge resilience built up and you, you've got there, you've gone through the challenges. There is inherent value in that straight away to, to companies and you could argue that even with the pandemic that the younger generations as they've come into the workforce haven't benefited from the training that would normally happen. Umm, so there's a lot of experience there. There's a lot of, umm, uh, so it's guidance that is needed. So there is an awful lot of value there. And as you said, if we're working longer, it's about finding the value and, and making sure that it, that people believe in this. And I'm sure we could spend 3 or 4 webinars on that topic just alone. So that, that is, is a huge topic and a really important one.

But I'm, I'm curious about the, we're kind of stepping into cultural issues or social cultural issues. And there's a few more topics in there I wouldn't mind just touching on. So childcare is an obvious issue, not only the cost of it, but also the mentality and the cultural issue around it versus female versus male. I was saying to Sinead and Mary yesterday when we were chatting that about 15 years ago I was a stay at home dad for about 9 months. But I always remember the impact culturally with some of my friends. There was a few raised eyebrows. I look back at it and possibly the best nine months I've ever had, but it was, it was very different. So childcare is an issue. It's not coming down. It's probably only going to go up who stays at home. If someone says who takes the the time off or sorry, who takes the I'll go flexible, you go full. That's a pile of issues there. Where do we go there?

Yeah, and I think it it was nearly assumed that the female would reduce their hours and, you know, go with the flexible kind of role or take a step back at work in order to to mine kids and collect kids from school and all kind of that. But I think that is slowly changing as well. Like when I my eldest is 12 and my youngest is 7. But even when my eldest started school, there was one stay at home dad. But now actually with my second dad, there's 3 or 4 stay at home dads and and the mom was working. So now you are seeing it, it is slowly changing. And now it wasn't like, oh, he's now it's like, Oh yeah. And yeah. And I think it is being like it is more normal. And I think, I suppose it's kind of sitting down and kind of saying the caring responsibilities aren't just for me. They're both of us. And, you know, we both need to figure this out. And I think when you kind of sit down and have that conversation, I don't think any male wants to work six weeks, 40-50 years either. They're kind of happy to take that, probably step back and you know, you kind of go 5 days and they do three, you know, the way. But you kind of like, you kind of change it around a bit. It's not just your role. And then I, I think it becomes, and like I, I do certainly think that people are, have, have shifted their mentality. And it's not just that it's, it's our role. And I think that obviously is, is, is making, it's going to make a big difference over the next like 10-20 years.

It's interesting, the research says that all households look at their joint household budget. What can we afford? How can we manage that? And we'll look at that. Virtually none have that conversation about pensions and there's a great opportunity. And I, I was an absolute freak. I was the the go back to work mum and I paid my husband's pension contributions while he was still sad. So when we got divorced, he didn't get my pension. But there we go, that's a separate issue. But I I presume that's. A1 in 100 event I I think when people are are struggling about are are debating, you know what's affordable, what's not affordable. The pension is generally the thing that falls off the table. It's about the childcare. It's about OK, we can go to three days a week but that means XY. But I can't imagine the pension is kept on the table the whole time but. But prompt that, you know, and and then equally, I joked about divorce, but so many women largely don't think about divorce as part of the overall settlement. So there's a piece of work I'm doing at the moment to ask government in the UK to make it mandatory for divorce assets to be considered as part of the overall mandatory process when somebody goes through divorce. But I think it, you know, that we know that it's at the point of maternity where the pension gap really starts to what can we do? Yes, we can encourage more men at the school gate, more people like you, Alan. Yes, we can encourage, equalize flexibility, normalize it for everyone because we will want it, but also get pensions on that, on that spreadsheet, on that bit of paper on the kitchen table or what can we afford? How do we do this? And, and employers have a role in that as well in terms of if someone, whether it's male or female, they take, they reduce their hours to four days or three days, they should be given some sort of projection. This is what your pension will be at retirement if you work 5 days, four days or three days. And I, I think like as we're saying, you just look at the immediate kind of net home like to take home pay when you reduce your hours, you don't ever, ever think about how it's impacting your pension.

No. And, and, and the other side of that, I think when it comes to the, of course, maybe this is my view and I might be wrong, but my impression is that the first thing we think of of assets is actually the house. Yes, typically the pension is the most. Valuable asset is your pension, Yeah. And actually in Ireland, I and I don't have the stats properly, but it would seem to me that your pension is considered like say I have a friend of mine who's going through a divorce right now and she was talking to me about a pension adjustment orders is what we call them here in Ireland, similar to your attachment orders. And you know, so even if like and both parties are just getting a nominal order, that means nothing is due to either spice. But it, it feels like over here it is considered, yeah, like that, as that family lawyers would say, OK, you know, when you're disclosing all your assets, it's this is your family home, your pension. And but but it's something that you're you were saying, Mary, that isn't considered in the UK as much as you think it should be. But that's that's me.

Yeah. But are you saying then that we could close the gender pay gap if everybody got divorced? The gender. Well. I'm not sure that's what we want to be saying. Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not. And and you'll only be, you'll only get a pension adjustment order typically where you stayed at home, say and your husband went down working and that you have no pension provision. But I suspect and, and I, I don't know how, how, how it's divvied out. I suspect if both parties have pensions, they keep their own pensions and and they're of similar value, they'll keep their own pensions and that's the way. So I'm absolutely not saying that at all, and I'm not suggesting people should go. For why that's an interesting concept, Mary, and I'm, I'm not sure we'll send it to government, but there's, there's an angle there. But there is an important aspect to this that again, your, your friend is going through divorce and she's talking to you about the pension. Now, where I think there's a disconnect is, and the stats are quite clear that 42% of women don't feel comfortable talking about their finances. And the way I'm interpreting that is women aren't talking about finances the way men are talking about it. And equally they're only talking about it if there's a problem. And typically when there is a problem, it's it's too late to solve it, if that makes sense. So I'm a bit stunned that that stat, I think it's really significant. So how do we sort of why do you think that is and how do we encourage?

Yeah, yeah. Like and it, it makes, it makes no sense really. It's not like females are more than capable of understanding tensions. I just think that they're probably just less confident when it comes to them. And also in terms of their approach or our approach towards investments, we're very kind of low risk as well. So even though we are making valuable contributions at the outset, we're kind of not in high enough risk funds to available that kind of compound interest and stuff like that. But things like that, it, there's no logic to it, but it, it like it feels like we are less confident and we're just less involved. And if you're not going to be confident or you're not going to be involved, well, then you just don't feel like you can make a decision around them. And, and maybe there's a piece that if you're earning less, you feel as if you have less rights to be able to talk about it. You know, it's that thing about not valuing running the whole home as something that's important. But, you know, we know that men and women's intelligence is equal. So it's absolutely not about capability. Maybe it goes back to that engagement and relevance point, say if it, it doesn't matter if it's a small amount, it's that practice of, of doing it like, like we say, you know, to our kids, get into that savings habit early and all of that. But there's a massive debate about why are women less confident about these things? Why are we more risk averse? Is it because of the way our brains are wired? Or is it because of a cultural, societal thing? Whatever it is, it's there. So you're say, right, recognizing that, what are we going to do? And we were talking about maybe we should be looking at different defaults at different life stages rather than a standard default. So I'm, I'm interested in your thoughts on that, Sinead.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is something that, you know, we could get right and it's an easy fix. Like rather than having a default investment strategy, like a provider or trustees as just a low risk fund, It should be one of those lifestyling funds where you're in a quite a high risk fund when you're in your 20s, thirties. And then as you get closer to retirement, it it kind of de risks. And then within five years of retirement, you're kind of in a capital protective fund. But I think that's the key because I, I think when you sit down like, you know, and, and look at all the funds and there's so many funds available and people just get totally overwhelmed. And then there's, oh, just give me the low risk fund because, yeah, well, we have 80, we should have three, but something like that. And I, I, I think, yeah, having a default investment strategy that is a lifestyle fund is, is very important. Probably to the age. Because, right, So, you know, we know that people find it complicated, so let's make it easy.

Yeah. So, you know, we've, we've looked at the causes in terms of, you know, longevity is an issue. We're living longer. Our pension design has been complex, it's improving. There are cultural issues there with the divide between childcare men and women. There are cultural issues with women have less confidence talking about their their finances and they are taking less risk. But they're all things that we can act on to, to a point. But if we move on, we've got stakeholders we need to engage, we have people we need to influence, people we need to lobby. So wouldn't mind just talking a little bit about who they are and what can we do with them. So who would you see? Is it the key stakeholders in in this discussion?

I think everyone is, is a valuable stakeholder and kind of everyone working together. I think Standard Life ourselves as a pension provider, you know, we can communicate like it's, it's how we also communicate to our, our, our female audience and, and our, and our, and through our advisory network, keeping the messages simple, trying to get, you know, females to kind of emotionally engage with their pensions. Stop losing them in the jargon. We know that doesn't work. We need to stop doing that also, you know, be it the likes of in insurance Ireland media and, and then I, I and also like employers and I like there's loads of different stakeholders and, and females themselves also need to take ownership as well. So we can all like, like even me as a pension professional and, and you like, we're engaging people. Like, you know, when you're chatting to people, you're engaging them about pensions, what is their kind of, you know, Second Life, you know, people are living longer. It's not about just retiring. It's about transitioning students to something different. And it's, it's kind of getting that conversation going and getting people to think about these things. And I think it's, we've been too long just thinking, OK, I'll retire at 60 and all of a sudden you're 60 and you're not working anymore. And you have this defined benefit management that that's not the way life works anymore. So I suppose it's like, you know, like we're all going to transition into different roles. And, you know, even now when I start kind of looking at jobs, I'm like, yeah, I could do that when I'm. So you know, the way you want maybe an easier type of role, but you still need that sense of purpose. Like me and my husband, we were joking recently, we went down to Centre parks and we were looking at, there was as you drive in someone kind of, there was a good few older people and they were kind of checking us in and we were like, that's a lovely second life. Like things like that, that you have that sense of purpose. But it's kind of thinking that I'm not going to be doing this forever, but I also want to do something. And I do know that I will be working probably well into my 60s. So it's kind of looking at that and considering it and then also, you know, engaging the people you know, and then they're like likely to.

Engage very interesting that we always keep coming back to. I don't want to use it make it sound fuzzy because it's actually really important the emotional engagement. So there's the rational and you can say people rationalize intellectually, but they decide emotionally. And it's it's getting that balance right that if we go out and talk to people about X funded this and this pension product does why they glaze over. They glaze over because it's not engaging quite rightly. Yeah, because they're like, don't worry, Mary isn't fun of grief there. Like I don't want to talk to anyone who. Funds and, and look, I'm, I'm a mini investment geek, but I can, I can understand that, you know, it's much more about the, the journey that people are going to and that purpose and what are they going to do and, and how do you find that or find that fulfillment? But it's getting that balance because there is a mathematical or a financial equation at the heart of it because you have to fund for whatever it is you want to fund for. Well, I think the way to engage people has got to be on the emotional side rather than the financial side, if that makes sense.

Absolutely, totally agree with that. So if we're going back to then the key stakeholders, you've mentioned a few in there. Let's let's go through them 1 by 1. You mentioned employers. Yeah. So the employer, from the point of view, what angle should we be coming at, is that they have a a role and responsibility to highlight gaps both in income and back both in pension gaps from a gender point of view. But they also have a role to to help people engage in their pension for the benefit of society further down. Yeah. Absolutely like insuring all their employees, whether they're working one day, 2 days, three days, are enrolled in some sort of a pension and then getting them engaged in it. And, and that is a hard one. And Mary said there's obviously three types of employers, one that just ticks the box. There's others who are kind of saying this is a real benefit. And there's others who are like, you know, having lots of kind of, you know, people in to chat, to chat to you about your pension, that sort of thing. So you're always going to have, you're never going to get it right from the, I said. And you're always. Going to have that employer and like any sort of like. Just thinking about. Yeah. And I and that's why they are probably going to be slotted into the auto enrollment scheme because they don't have a pension set up for their employees and that's why you need that auto enrollment scheme. So that's that. But then there is the other employers and that's where we kind of would help our like our advisors who employer is, is their clients to kind of communicate with that employer and you know provide. The information, yeah. And and Mary, is it your view and position that the employer who sees the pension and the engagement as part of their employee proposition for want of a better description, as the employer that will have better engagement, better retention into the future?

Yeah. And, and I'll just step back a moment because going back to those stakeholders, there is money at the bottom of this. So for government, they need increased productivity in the work in the economy and they need people to save more to balance the books in the future. So government is really acutely aware of the importance of retirement savings, labour market participation for businesses, the labour market is tight. They need those skills and they recognise that, you know, women are 51% of the labour market and the 50 plus, I said yesterday, there's more people turning 50 each year than turning 5. S employers are now thinking about women are really important, 50 plus of growing importance. So what do I need to do differently with my benefit package? So if we think then about an employee who's trying to attract talent, forget the moral argument, what do I do to attract and retain talent? I need to think about the employees that I have and the employees that I want. And that, you know, the bottom line means that then you need to adopt policies that are going to enable people to balance their caring responsibilities and their work. Going to need to have a workplace that supports women when they're going through the menopause because otherwise they will leave one in four, one in four women consider leaving the workplace because of menopause symptoms. It's pretty easy to put in place the support that avoids that. So if you think about women and older workers and kind of do that intersect, then you start to think about your benefits package differently. And if you think about younger women and then you start the, well, how do I retain and attract those younger women? Part of it is supporting men and enabling family friendly workplaces, which is about improving paternity leave, flexible work for everybody, normalising that, enabling career breaks, investing in training three people. So as I talk about the three hours, recruiting, retaining and retraining. And I think that's what's, you know that that for me is when I talk to employers, I talk about you. Talent is your biggest priority because if you have the talent, you can grow and you can be more profitable. So think about what you need to recruit, retain, retrain, and actually women are an essential part of that. So your thinking has to be about what do I do across those three Rs for women? What do I do across those three Rs for older people as well? In the workplace, that's what's changing because we have a shrinking workforce of people leaving school and that whole longevity piece is is reshaping the workforce. That means advisors and pension providers have a role to play in weaving the finances into all of that for the individuals. Because, you know, as individuals, we want to make sure we've got enough money to live on. We want to make sure we've got purpose and security for ourselves and our family. So if I'm really cynical, I say it's actually all about the money. But the way we do it is to engage in the the narrative rather than the fun choice in the percentages and the performance. That was a bit. So I'm not even sure I answered your question, but I was. Just, but it's very interesting. I think it's, it's backing up what we're saying about that emotional engagement. But there is a financial equation at the at the heart of this. But when we're looking at the stakeholders, obviously the employer is a big one. But I, I'm going to go to another stakeholder and I'm going to pose a question has come through from one of our audience members here in terms of how important do you think it is for women themselves to be more proactive. So there is a role for the employer, there's a role for men, but there's a role for women as well. And wouldn't mind touching on that because we've got to influence all these various parties. So what do you think the role there is around being more proactive? Is it again? Is it coming back to awareness?

Yeah, I mean nobody wants to end up Paul so but So what needs to happen is an conversations early on and we every every single person on this call is part of that change to go away and have a conversation with a woman to have a conversation. Say what are you doing? And the research that people would rather do the vacuuming than open their pension statement. We've got to flip that so that we can be more like the Australian or the Scandinavian market where people actively engage. We've got to make it easy so that you've got the I've got the Standard Life app on my phone. I love it because each month ago. Oh. It's got bigger. That's great. So yes, absolutely women have to do something because it's only us who can sign the bit of paper who can make that choice. So ultimately, yes, however, the barriers that are in place at the moment while women aren't doing it, need to be overcome because none of us want to be poor. So the fact we're not doing it at the moment isn't because we don't want to, it's because we're not confident, we're not being helped, we're not being engaged. People aren't recognising the squiggly career paths, employers don't have the right policies, government isn't thinking inclusively, the media is reinforcing stereotypes. All of those multiple socio political economic factors end up with women living for longer with 35% less income. So there's a lot in that part. So if we think about the key stakeholders, again, we have we have government, we have employers, we have men, we have women, we have pension leaders. And then if you start looking and breaking down some of those issues, you have education, you have simplification, you have flexibility in the workplace, you have equity in the workplace. And we just go back to the last point there around flexibility and equity in the workplace. Flexibility is is is a big part here because squiggly career is squiggly career can mean changing career, can mean doing a different job, but it can also mean three days a week. It can mean four days a week, it can mean two days a week. How do we, I suppose, encourage employers that flexibility is OK and actually there are benefits to flexibility for the company from a commercial point of view?

Gosh, so the five day week was introduced in 1926 by Henry Ford and we now have cars in more colours that are black. And the, the idea that we should post post pandemic go back to the 1920s actually stuns me. And because if you, if you I, I talk to all the big recruitment companies, the number one search term is flexible work. 9 out of 10 piece and 90% of the workforce want to work flexibly. So I go back to as a business, talent is your biggest asset. If you're not open to working flexibly, you are closing off the talent and people will choose somewhere else because at the moment it is, it's a, it's a talent market. And I just, I almost flipped that question. What do you say to people who think it like, why wouldn't you? Honestly, why wouldn't you? If the best person walks through your door for that job, but they say, do you know what? I have to finish at midday on a Friday or I need to work at home every Wednesday. Why are you going to say, no, I don't get it? And that, that's my bias, that I literally don't get it. You know, we have people across the health service, we have teachers, we have, we have people in supermarkets. They're all working differently, flexibly. It can happen.

And that's really interesting because there's a question here that that's related to the flexibility, but also related to, to internal ageism, shall we say that the, the viewers wondering if it's changing companies are still not keen to employ people over 45. It's very hard to move jobs if you're over 45. So is is this again, we, we know it's an issue, but it's an internal issue and I'd suggest it's an external issue as well. There is change here but. That internal ageism leads to external ageism because own ageism as a hiring manager will affect the decisions you make. But you look at the current presidential candidates, you look at Boris, do older people not have ambition? The average age of a foot the CEO in the UK is 55. Do they not have capability? So it is it, it is the internal ageism that drives the external ageism. But also as employers, I, I challenge any employer to look at their recruitment website and to see if they've got got any grey hair or no hair, because most are super diverse in terms of ethnicity and gender, but forget that some people have grey hair, you know, and wrinkles. And so we give out cues. Oh no, you have to be young to work here. And so it's all of those little things just, yeah, there's ageism. And most employees actually acknowledge that they're ageist, which, given it's illegal, really is quite surprising. I'm slightly biased on the Gray hair promotion, Mary, as you can imagine, I think it's a fantastic movement.

So if if we're looking at again, stakeholders, employers, governments, you know, moving this on individuals, we have to raise awareness government, we need to keep pushing for for reform employers, we need to keep encouraging as was the benefits around flexibility retaining staff. We need to keep encouraging them around the benefits of of hiring flexible and older generations, if that makes sense Experience that's probably a much. Better way of saying. It and a key part of this as well, we have to, you know, simplify the language, but engage people emotionally on this around the benefits, particularly females around benefits of of proactively engaging in their financial plan. Because the staff is quite surprising that females who engage in their financial plan have funding for 22 years. Females who do not engage in their financial plan have funding for nine years. So that's quite stark. So it's just if you, if you just even sit down and plan and it's linked to the benefit, the Halo effect of even having a plan makes you feel better straight away. So the more we can improve as are, the more we can promote conversations with females around their pension planning Immediately there's a benefit.

Yeah, like and both parties if you're like part of a couple should be sitting down having that financial plan. It shouldn't just be both of them. Do it separately, like, you know, when a financial advisor is meeting with someone who's married or whatever their partner, they should be meeting with both of them because it's their joint finances and, and, and that's something and, and, and I do think that that is happening to be fair, but like in some instances there are like male just, they have a financial planner and they look after their own finances and kind of leave it at that. So I suppose that is shifting. I, I, I don't think that's, that that's a really big issue anymore, but it is something to be mindful of that even, you know, with pensions and, you know, even if people are transferring out of, out of a defined benefits scheme and it's, it's a male, they should have both parties because they're giving up a spouse's pension, for example, or things like that. You know, so that you're always considered like there is two people typically, you know, it's like in a household and it is a joint kind of decision making and it is joint finances. So that should be.

Do you know what I say to my to a lot of people is a man is not a pension plan. You know, it's we need to do it for ourselves and and and that's that's what we need to get it. What do you want your life to be? How are you going to how are you going to achieve it? Because relying on others, relying on the state isn't going to be great. And and you know, we, we need to be engaging, but we need to help do that. And that's with our jobs. That's the key. Financial independence gives you options whether you're a man or a woman. That's it. It just gives you a choice, doesn't it?

I'm going to finish up on one or two questions that have just come through and one of them relates to income levels. And it's kind of a general question, but what percentage should be recommended of their income at 20, 30, 40, 50 to fund for a 50% target of final income approximately? And where the question is coming from is the idea to fund gradually is very important. I think this is something we've been coming. So, so it's better to do something rather than nothing than not start a pension until they're in their 30s or 40s. So they kind of elevator approach. The, the, the question is phase is phase that so, well, I know there's a, a, a technical answer to this. We can go work it out, but it's about just getting the person going really, I think is where the question is coming. From yeah. And, and I think even like the way the auto enrolment, the recommendation for the auto enrolment that, you know, at 16, as soon as you start working, you start paying into your pension. And even with females like we should be paying in earlier because there is a chance that we will kind of start doing that squiggly career bit like in our our 30s and maybe mid 40s. So, you know, if, if you've started funding earlier, the pension issue is like, well, it's like it's less likely to be a, a bigger gap or it's less likely to be a pensioner, There's less likely to be a pension issue if you have started funding earlier. So, and then the power of compound interest is, is massive. So over that course of, if you start at 16, it's obviously not really going to be like it's, it's, you're not going to have a big fund at that stage. But if you are like, you know, if you like my first job when I was in my early 20s, I was just automatically enrolled in a scheme. So now that just became part of income tax PSIUSC in your pension contribution. And that should be the way everyone is, is thinking. So straight off, once you start your working life, you're paying into a a pension and that's a private like you're paying into your PSI, which is your state pension. You should be paying into your supplementary pension yourself and it's never too early to start and as much as you can. So again, it's it's. It's OK, yeah. And it's OK. Like, and just because you start off at a higher amount, you can reduce it, but then you can increase it and reduce like you know, your pension contributions can also be squiggly. Like you're correct. But don't ignore it. Yeah. And it so I'd say you know what percentage at each stage depends on where you're at. Broadly in the UK, we say 12% for auto enrollment through a career is broadly something that we'd like as a minimum. But I also think it's really important to say as long as, as well as it's never too early to start. It's never too late to start because if you just can put in a bit, if you get in a bit of an inheritance and do you pay off your SO the natural tendency is all I've inherited 40,000 or whatever, I'll pay off the mortgage, actually use your pension tax relief, put that in there and then you've got a nest egg for the future.

And that's. Really interesting. Mary. I don't think people think that way. A lot of time. I think they think if there is an inheritance that that goes for the holiday or to pay off the mortgages and but I'm not sure people think actually I can top up my pension. It's probably not as sexy or as fun as A and, and because we we're emotionally connected to our houses, because there are homes, we tend to want to protect them. But this this is where, you know, economically, logically advises pension companies need to be saying, do you know what pension tax relief is the best interest rate you can get in the world? So just like, why walk away from that? Because that's free money, that's money you've been given. And I know we can't actually say it's an interest rate. And that's my kind of glib, non-technical communication of it. But yeah, if, if, if as an advisor you have somebody coming to you with an inheritance, it's like, yeah, something fun, but do something for yourself, for your future as well. Be kind to your future self.

And I'm going to ask one last quick question for you both. And it is, it's, it's a difficult one and we could spend a lot of time on it. But I'm going to ask you to give me a quick reaction. And that is what do you think the biggest challenge is in narrowing the pension gap? Now we have discussed multiple things and it was the easy answer would be all of them. Yeah, the biggest challenges, it's so big. It's so big and it's so ingrained throughout everything attitudinally. If there were one thing, it would be flexibility. Flexible. OK. That's what I was. Yeah, like I I would say engaged like females engaging with their pensions in in a different way. But flexibility if if you have employers who are flexible, I don't think females are likely to leave the workforce or reduce the hours in the same way as they do at the moment. And I think if that flexibility was in place, they'd females would have less of squiggly career. And men would have squiggles as well. Yes. Absolutely.

Well, Mary Sinead, thank you so much for for coming along and talking about this really important topic. A lot of key takeaways for me. Obviously we need to keep driving engagement. Flexibility is key. There is several stakeholders, employers, government, men, female that we have to, to to try to engage and and to promote. As was my big ask for for people who have joined us today is this will be part of a series and we will be back to talk about other topics in this area. But my ask is that you talk to people about this, talk to friends and family, promote this, because while all companies and pension leaders have a role to do this, I think in Ireland in particular, it's word of mouth. It's just having these conversations. And there's a great opportunity in my view for advisors when they're doing financial plans is they start putting this stuff firmly on the table with their with their customers and talking about the implications further down the line around if you don't get this right. So please do pass it on. And again, we will be back in contact with further details around the next webinar over the coming weeks. So thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and thanks again to Sinead and Mary. Take care, talk to you soon. Bye bye.

 

Hello everybody, and you are very welcome to the Women in Pensions series. I'm Sonia Lennon, I'm your host for today. I am joined by two incredible professionals, Sinead McAvoy and Fiona Keen Keen on the couch. This is our our humble home, right? And you are very welcome in to join us today for what is going to be a fascinating discussion around uh pensions with a particular perspective on women and how women engage with pensions.

So we have a phenomenal registration rate for today's events. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. We hope we will inform you, inspire you, maybe change your mind a little bit about how we communicate today's landscape of uh, pensions for women. And I think it's worth saying it's quite a particular landscape. We have the the stats and the facts and the insights to back up the hypothesis that women really need to be communicated with and engaged with in a very different way to men. Because I suppose one of the things that we'll get into today is the fact that all the research tells us that women are not as comfortable and as confident talking about money as men are. And maybe it's time to change how we talk about money.

Sinead, just tell us a little bit about your role within Standard Life.

I work on the kind of pensions technical team where I would engage with advisors mainly around the, the kind of the rules and the regulations on pensions. So that this is quite a well, it's been kind of a natural shift in progression kind of moving from, it's not just all about the, the rules and the regulations and it's more of a journey and kind of making it more tangible and putting a plan in place and.

So where you would sit very heavily in all of that technical piece, you've really seen a shift to to rounding out that information piece with I suppose the emotional engagement, future planning or a, a new way of thinking about this really.

Yeah, a a absolutely. And and we kind of see like the industry itself has has changed hugely and there has been kind of in the last few years that the shift has been quite umm, big that it has gone. It's not about the pension product, it's not about the investment fund, it's not about the, the, the tax relief. And I, I think we're realizing that we do lose people if that's what we're engaging with them about. And now it's kind of more making a tangible, as I said, it's like, what's your plan? What would you like to do in retirement? It's it's kind of engaging them and making people sit back and think and go, OK. And it's unlocking the emotion around pension, I think.

And so we're going to, we're going to blow your mind today with some fantastic stats, but also some new ways of thinking around pensions, particularly when it comes to women. Fiona, tell us a little bit about your role.

So I lead the HR function for Standard Life International, that's our European business of Phoenix Group. So I guess what I'm doing and, and some of the things we're trying to sort of promotion support is the same experience as Sinead does, but with our colleagues in Standard Life. And I think what's fab about Standard Life International and, and our business as an employer is that we believe that great customer and advisor experiences are delivered by great employee experiences and colleague experiences. So my role if we think about pensions and women and pensions is about our financial benefits and pension and promoting those because we are pensions providers. So we should all be advocates of, of, of what we provide. And that's one strand of, of part of my remit in Europe. But also, and we'll go on and touch about it, as you said, is the whole area of financial well-being and so, so crucial in a post COVID and in a hybrid working well world. So some fundamentals for us thinking about our colleagues are around the whole area of well-being and financial is so is so important. So that's part of what my role is internally in thinking about that, engaging our our employees in that.

Fantastic. We have about 460 people registered for today's event, so you are so welcome. Thank you for taking this time to be with us today. And you know, to, to introduce my background, I suppose I, I have, I suppose for over the last decade been an advocate for women, for women's empowerment, for unlocking the potential in, in our now and also in our future. And I think this is a really pertinent conversation to be having now. There's been so much kind of discourse around equitable workplaces and obviously a lot around gender pay gap and also around gender pension gap. And this is a great opportunity for us to kind of see it through new art and, and you know, as, as, as humans, we're evolving so much in terms of how we engage not just with each other in the home, but also in work. And our needs have changed. I think we want to feel fulfilled. We want to feel purposeful and, and one of the ways that we can really do that is by creating a, a security now, but also into our financial future.

And I thought it might be interesting to talk a little bit about our money stories. I'll, I'll start with mine. And for me, I grew up in a household where my dad worked in the bank and my mom always worked. She, you know, I, I used to talk about my other mummy when we used to go to different houses after school. And you know, that, that was a normality for me. And my mum was really adamant that, umm, you know, if you're not part of the revenue, you're not part of the decision making. Always have your running away money. Money is choice. And I, I, like, she definitely seared that into my consciousness and, and that became, I suppose, an imperative to be financially independent to, to secure my own future. And my dad, because he worked in the bank. Umm always said, you know, here's your pocket money, spend half, save half. So that was drilled in, you know, and that for me, that bit of it was all a very positive money story, but there was still sort of residual bits of it maybe that weren't as positive. You know, when you drill back into your own history and your internal narrative about money, there is a bit of a kind of a, you know, hold on to it. Don't, don't, don't get rid of it. It might not always be there. And I suppose I went through a, a, a process recently with the coach where I had to recognize the fact that I was allowed to move from strive into thrive. Finally, at the tender age of 54, it was time to say, OK, it's going to be all right. You know, And, and in a way, you have to get to that in order to release, release the funds and, and think about the future.

Sinead, tell us a little bit about your your money story and your background.

Yeah, so I, I suppose for me, my mum also worked, she was a primary teacher and she worked for 40 years. So as I kind of started off in my kind of early career and my siblings as well, the one thing. And so she had just retired, she obviously had her Max pension and it is a great one at that. But she would have always been asking us, me and my siblings, she was there asking, you know, do you have a pension in that role that you're in? And, and, you know, she understood and she was always like, well, like, how could I have enjoyed my retired life without this pension? Like, and now she's, she's 20 years retired and she still kind of lives that great retired life. And both her and my dad, like there when you look at what you'd like to see like a retired, like a retired life that you would like yourself, they like embody it. And you're kind of going, okay, that's what I want. And then the pension then is, is just there to facilitate mechanism. Yeah, that's actually, but it's, it's, it's how they actually are enjoying it. And you know how they're living their retired lives. That's that's the bit I want and that's the tangible bit. And then it's secondary, it's putting that pension in place to get there.

Naturally make that leap and certainly as a, you know, the, the community have joined us today. We think about the policy, we think about the tax benefits, we think about all of those technical bits where actually the connection point for, you know, a huge new cohort of people who are not engaging is the emotional endowment. It's the the tangible output. You know, I was telling you the other day that my dad, who's 84, is taking myself and my sister to India this day next week for three weeks because he said, I want to be able to take an early and give you an early inheritance experience it myself and, and let's go and do this fantastic adventure together. And, and, and I think when I think about that, I think what I want to be sure that I can do that for my children or, or, or whoever I want to go away with for three weeks into my future.

Fiona, tell us a little bit about about your story.

So my parents are both from farming backgrounds and money was very, very scarce. So I can identify with your scarcity experience and very, I know certainly my dad's family, you know, day-to-day, often without the meals. So I think two things stand out for me in terms of my money story. One was, you know, saving. So it's very definitely a sort of an emphasis on saving rather than spending, which I think I've taken through to my kids. And the other bit was about education and the importance of education. Neither had finished school, so education was a big thing. And I think the bit, if I think about now that I'm really thankful and proud from parents, there is that also as a woman, a female, the importance of financial independence, important of career and being completely independent irrespective of what life choices you make. So that's kind of two standouts for me and I guess.

I love the story about Please tell the story of the nightclubs. I love this.

So we were chatting and I was giving an example and this is my dad now, umm, and we were talking about, you know, that kind of fear. He had a fierce desire for me dependent and uh, I'm from, I was living in Soto Gore at the time and umm, anytime when I was a teenager there was, I wanted to go to a nightclub and the women weren't free or girls weren't free. Absolutely not. You pay your way. There's no way you're going free just to be, as you said, the fluff. So that was a sort of very practical and, and, and I've carried that through. And the story behind that then is you have value, don't undermine it. Yeah. And, and I think the other bit, so you talked about that scarcity thing being there, you know, in the mind and I'm, I've always been trying to think about it. So even though my parents had very little money in that scarcity thing, actually I've always had a sense of, and maybe it's throughout independence and education that I'll always be fine, that I'll always land on my feet, that something will come up that I'll never be short of money. Umm, so that's. That's your. Secure thing to bring through my life at every single stage. Never, ever worried about money.

It's really interesting, you know, because when we look at how we propel these conversations towards women to try and encourage them to, well, first of all, to try and catch them, never mind encouraging, we have to, we have to bring women to the table to have these conversations about pensions before we even think about how we're going to talk to them. But actually, I think the opportunity today is, is, you know, all of you who are listening today, this is an opportunity to position yourselves as the go to expert for women in pensions. So you are delivering this service in a way that creates almost its own virality because it is so appropriate and relevant for this group. And, and so you talked about scarcity. One of the things that we really need to do is to be aware of what, what, what is your money mindset around this and, and how can we help you to unlock, you know that into your future. But look, this is not an area without its challenges, right? So if you look at the, the, the research that has been done through Standard Life, 42% of women say that they feel uncomfortable talking about money with family and friends. Like that's like, that makes me sad because I think we have a role to, to take that taboo away. And it is a taboo, right? Because, you know, we, we kind of feel a bit icky if we're talking about money. We feel a bit icky if we're negotiating for a salary raise. What's that about? What's that about? And this is really kind of tapping into social norms that have been kind of placed upon us. We have the choice to move away from that and, and to create a new narrative. 41% of women are confident that they're making the most of their pension. I'm delighted for the 41%, but that's nearly 60% who aren't. So, so we have a, we have a, a role there to unlock that. 26% of women feel prepared for retirement compared to 36% of men. So we need to change that narrative.

Why is this? I, I suppose like that there is a, a certain stage of life and I suppose I'm, I'm one of those like we are what you would term the sandwich generation. So we have really young kids or we have parents that we may need to, to look after both or or both. Absolutely. So like that, there's that. And you know, our, our glasses are full. Sometimes we can't, like, we can't see like what next week is going to hold, not alone, like our summer holiday and not alone like retirement or age 65 or, or it's, it's not even a number anymore. But we're just not able to envision our future selves. And that's, that's the real issue. And I suppose we haven't and, and maybe we don't have any sort of pension in place. And then we say, oh, we're too late. And then we don't understand it. And you know, the pension industry itself, they, you might Google it and all you come up with is tax relief. And I, I think as an industry, we're, we're, we're probably not selling it or communicating it correctly at all. And what we need to do is take a step back and kind of really decide or try and kind of make it more 10 for females. Because I think if you make it more tangible and females kind of really see what they need to do, then they're more likely to engage. And once you have them engaged, then you can kind of continue from there.

And you've had I suppose first hand experience and lived experience around the impact to your pension through your career choices. And this is something that I think it's really important that we're mindful of this.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Like I have worked for four days for the last maybe 5 or 6 years. And I suppose and, and, and traditionally I, I guess it's females who do take that step back and at all times. And, and initially when you decide to go four days, you're going to sit down with your partner and you say, OK, this is my income, this is your income combined. Can we figure out our mortgage? Can we figure out a holiday, kids, all of that sort of stuff. But actually, at no stage that I go, actually my pension is going to be impacted. And if I and, and for how, how long? And I suppose there probably needs to be supports and place that maybe if you do go for like and take a step back and go on to four days or reduce your hours that you realise actually my pension is going to be impacted. And, and maybe you need a calculator to go, OK, five days means this at age 65, four days, four days means this. And I suppose there was nothing and and like I I should have been aware like this is my thing. You're the type to go on you. Should know like like, probably like and I'd like. So it was a major in my part and it's only now sitting back having these conversations that I realized, Oh my God, like this is my thing and I I wasn't aware of it. So it's, it's, it's been really kind of useful and it's, it's made me think and I hope it makes others. Think yeah.

And we were talking about this before we we came on air around, you know, maybe promoting the idea of compressed hours where because, you know, four days, it's a bit of a poisoned chalice, right? So you can end up doing the five days work, spilling out over into the day that you're not supposed to be working and taking 80% of your your overall salary. So we need to be pretty smart and savvy and we have the wits to do it. We just need to have those conversations and just to say, umm, we are going to have AQ and a set session. I think it's really important that we hear your questions. We have some already in and, and when we come to Q&A, there will be a chat box and you'll be able to, umm, let us know your thoughts, your comments, your questions, how we can help. That's what we're here for. And even through the conversations that we've been having to date, we've kind of unlocked other opportunities, new ways to engage, new, new ways for you to talk to your clients and, and to create the right results for everybody. Because I suppose it's, it's, it's wonderful to think that you are in, you're selling a product that can make a real difference to people's futures.

So the first thing I'd say is I've been where Sinead was and and come out the other side and now I'm in the trying to make up the lost ground with my pensions. So I know the real impact of it. So back to your question, Sonia, so we talked about the challenges, but I think the flip side of of the statistics is, are the opportunities. And I think it's that social, we're talking about that sort of social and emotional connection. So the bit that really stood out from the stats that we've done, the research we've done is that actually having a pension and having that long term security actually really makes you feel positive in the here and now. I thought, wow, never have understood that, but actually how you think about your finances and how you spend your money actually feeling happier in the now when you have that long term, I suppose investment and security and then also the bit and there's.

And just before you move on, that makes total sense to me because you know, if it, regardless of what age or stage you're at, if you're not, if you're not maxing out your, your future stability, there's a something going on in the back of your brain saying this is on the To Do List, lads. You got to sort it out. Yeah. So, so that kind of niggling anxiety is there. So it makes sense to me that statistically, people who have dealt with it, yeah, that that's removed. It's one thing off the list.

And I think the other thing and we were, we were having a chat about the kind of the, the concept of pension and the word and how much that's becoming outdated. And as I think advisors are connecting us know that we have the Second Life campaign. So for me it is a second life. It's moving and transitioning to that kind of post, let's say the business world, a corporate world. And I think the other bit that's fascinating about the stats is that 90% of, of people who've retired and have pensions feel very positive and feel very emotionally sort of comfortable. Umm, and it's back to the stories you were telling about, you know, and again, my dad is, again, it's, you know, it's having the choice to have those experiences, umm, and, uh, you know, just enjoy that next stage of your life as opposed to retirement. So I do think, you know, very, very compelling research, uh, we've done and, and just.

And all that, uh, research is available, isn't it? All that research is available on our our Internet site and we go on and I think we're going to talk about some of the resources if people haven't connected with it. So yeah, there's a lot there. It's, it's amazing. And I think, you know, it's, it's, it's time that we evolve. And I have to say, you know, we know that what you're doing at Standard Life is innovative and, and game changing because you've won awards for it. And this is, I suppose it's so fantastic to see that there is an evolution. Financial services has always been conservative and it's always been very technical, I suppose by, by by definition in terms of the regulators and all of that kind of stuff. But to, to stand up now as an organisation and say that's not enough anymore. We need to humanise this. We need to to create emotional endowment to to to create a better future for our clients and and by extension our advisor. I think it's absolutely amazing.

Umm, we, we are looking at umm, I suppose you know, what are the resources and you mentioned the second life questionnaire. I I did it you, before I talk about my experience with it, you might just, umm, tell us a little bit about it.

So we've talked about the Second Life platform that we have and, and that meant that it's been award-winning and I've been there with my colleagues working through it and just hugely excited about it. So you've talked about it, Sinead, which is about thinking about taking a step back and it is that emotional and social, you know, connection. And, and I think what's really great is that actually the approach is about pension and long term savings being an enabler and helping you to achieve those goals and ambitions. So what the second knife questionnaire does is actually take a step back, forget about what pension fund think about what, what life choices, what you know what, what are your priorities, what are your dreams? You talked about part time, full time working. So really starting to think about well, what do I want, where am I now, what do I want and how do I get there? And I think then the pension becomes an enabler and an income stream for that. So that is the Second Life platform again details on our Internet and and I've done a questionnaire is super.

Yeah, it is super because I think, you know, you mentioned the glass being full and that's something you know, that that we use to, to say. If you, if you think about the client sitting in front of you and you know, you're, you're trying to, you're trying to give information, give supports, give products, but actually all of our glasses are full to the brim. So there's nowhere to put the information. The Second Life Questionnaire is an opportunity to to to process some of that fullness, some of that anxiety and, and to to get rid of it, to put it down on the page. It. Probes you. Think and you know it kind of go okay and and it kind of nearly stops you in your tracks and and it did me too. I like, I when I actually filled it in initially and I was like, and like the questions are like, simply like the first question is, what age do you want to retire at? But then it starts, what are your dreams? What are your goals? How are you going to fill those $2000? You have an extra $2000 a year in retirement. How are you going to fill those? And does that excite you? Does it make you nervous? All of these sort of things? And and that's the probing question that goes, OK, I need to figure out what is my planner? And it doesn't have to be like, like you don't have to have an exact plan, but you need to think about it and that plan and, and come up with something and that plan then can amend, you can amend it and adapt it kind of as you get through to retirement.

And I think you know, as, as somebody you know, who's, who's looking at their pension, their own pension provision, it is that ability to put yourself in, in, in your future shoes. And that's not easy, right? It's, it's really not easy to engage with your future self. All the research will say that. Like yes, so it's reframing everything. So you know, like we're reframing now how we look at retirement. It isn't just the pension product, it isn't just the tax relief, it isn't the investment growth. And, and I'm and I, I talk about that all the time and now like, and I'm making like, and I suppose my lane was always the pensions technical lane. I spoke about that. But now, and, and it's probably only in the last number of years working with this second life questionnaire, I'm realizing that bit is losing people. The whole like, oh, this is if you put in, you know, you, you got tax relief at 20% or 40%, that is losing people. And that makes people disengaged. And what we want to do is kind of have that chaff ask questions and they're probing questions that gets people thinking and then they're likely, and once they're engaged and then they can kind of see their future self a little. But like, it's more tangible because they're like, I, I do want to have this great retired life. And we look at people, it's like, I look at my parents and go, I want their retired life. And it's not about their pension funds. It's about what they've done in retirement and and that's the kind of retired life or transitionary life. And maybe retired is the wrong word. Judi Dench is very vocal at the actress about the fact that she thinks retirement is the rudest word in the dictionary. And I do agree with her. But for the moment, we have to keep using it because people understand what we're talking about. But. We're lobbying for transitional phase or something much nicer. Something. Yeah, that that makes it sound less aging.

Yeah, I think it's because it it, it makes it sound aging like it. Does, and we're not mad about that. No, of course females are absolutely not mad about that at all. Yeah, and it's funny because we talk about, you know, the client and and how the client, how it really helps the client to see themselves in their future shoes to to understand what their life might like might be like in a little bit more detail. But Fiona, that is going to require a new form of engagement and communication from the advisors in order to unlock that.

Absolutely. And we'll go back to your three-week in India examples, so you know it's. I think 7 more sleeps. We're. All about, I think all of us can identify with, you know, experiences and choices and that's what enables us too. So and again, I think if I put myself in the advisor shoes, it's about OK, so it is it is how do I connect and it's understanding. So putting yourself in the shoes of the audience. You talked about all the challenges indeed, as I have of of glasses, you know, full. I think our brains, if we have so much already going on there and you're reaching out and you're talking about, you know, managed buffer this that whatever people are women are going. Snow blind. Can't absorb it, but you lead with it. OK, let's. You know, let's think. Let's. Pour out Let's. Think about let's connect and actually then it's OK. There's a hook there and there's OK. I want to know a bit more about this and I'll create time for it because we will create time for the things that are most important in our life. But it is that language. It is putting, putting yourself in the shoes of, of the, of the audience of the, of the client, the female client. And I would indeed say, I know this is about women and pensions, but you talked about, you know, what was it 28% of women versus 36% of men across the board? It's still low, right? Very low. So I think that social emotional connection is doesn't matter by gender. I think women, you know, potentially it is taking it further. So I think that's hugely important, so.

Societally, we have an issue with it. You know, we're, we're not plugged in, you know, in the way in the States, the 401K is just part of how we do business. We're, we're not there yet. And, and, you know, we're, we're, we're missing a trick as citizens and as individuals in terms of being able to unlock that. I'm interested to know because this is a big part of the question, you know, from your experience, what are the conversations that are being had around pensions in your, in your friend group, in your family? Because for me, it is definitely this level anxiety that a lot of my friends and family would have, particularly women around, you know, have I left it too late? Uh, have I done enough? Umm, you know, is it all over by the shouting literally. And, and it, you know, I'm, I'm very, very lucky because my dad, because he was in the bank and when so I started my career as a freelancer, I've always been effectively a pirate. And, you know, he said, right, If you're going to freelance, ain't nobody looking after you. So you need to look after yourself. And so I took out my, my first pension when I was in my 20s, which is, is very, very unusual, very impressive. It's, well, I don't know, I, I think I was just led to water and told to drink, you know, but, but not everybody has that as a kind of a guiding, A guiding principle. So, you know, what are the conversations that you're having with your your wider group around this?

Yeah. And, and it is obviously because I, I work in pensions, it is something that I would kind of ask my friends, do you have a pension? And a lot of them aren't engaged. And, but I am finding they're now becoming more engaged because they're all 40 HP like, you know, so they're now realizing I don't want to work forever. And what do I need to do? And now some of them would come to me because like, say I have a few that work in financial services and some of them might get bonuses. And I would have always been kind of saying to them, you should be putting some of that bonus in as you know it into your pension. You know, obviously it's very tax efficient, but you never had it there, like you never had that money in the 1st place. So, you know, just take a portion of it and put it away. And now a few of them have come to me. Oh, I put my, and, and they're telling me and they're quite proud of themselves and I'm very proud of them too. But I think now they're becoming more engaged, but probably only from the, the, the tax side of things. But actually I, I think I need to, and, but, but I, I would also start the conversation with them going. But you know what, like you don't want to work forever. And like, if you have no pension in place, there is only a state pension of 258. What, a 30 week? Can you live on that? And they're like, oh, maybe not like, and, and sometimes it is that kind of hard facts. And they're going OK, I, I, I can't. And it, it is scaring them a little. And that's not what I'm trying to do. But at the same time I'm trying to kind of. Just move them to action, yes? This is the reality of it if you don't take action and I think also as as females, we need to take ownership ourselves instead of kind of having our head heads in the sands. We need to be responsible and become financially aware and become financially illiterate. Yeah, we need and. And as an industry, we need to make it more tangible. But also females have to step up to the mark too, like and and males as well. Yeah, but you know that this is kind of. But we are the women in pension event today. So we are going to focus on the women, yes, and. And yes, so we are focusing on, remember, what do you say when you're like men too? You're so welcome. You're so welcome. Yeah. But, but, but we do definitely need to step up to the mark and we do need to own our own financial future.

Fiona, what's your experience? What are the conversations that you're having out there?

Goodbye. I know you've just said it's women and pensions, so I guess I don't go out and ask, but I, I have across a male and female friend group know I work in financial services and probably the conversations I'm having it a bit more about, you know, starting where you're at. So, you know, there, there's no point in saying, well, you know, and it's actually making it simple. That's a great advice. And I like to myself, if somebody was coming to me and explaining something, I'd kind of go, OK, well, OK, you know, paint your picture. What are the top, you know, 1, you know, 2-3 things I need to know. So very often it's just trying to use plain English around the the terminology and what are you actually trying to achieve? Yeah. And what? What are you leaving on the table? So a lot of the time it's general conversation that's often social conversations and it's about opportunities and really simple cut through and a bit about actually where you're at now. Here's what. Here's what the next and I think I think giving people action steps is, is really important. Like what is the call to action? We've had the conversation, you know, we've, we, we understand the benefits. We've put ourselves in our future shoes. What are we going to do about it? You know, and I think for all of you on the call and thank you so much for being with us today. We're going to come to your questions very, very shortly. I think it is an, a sort of a call to action to all of you as well to say, let's open up these conversations, you know, in all of our our social groups to say, are you there yet? Are you coming? And once you can unlock that kind of by the way, women are 51% of the population that that's a huge business opportunity to be really cold hearted about it. We're offering huge value into the future. And so how do we develop reputations as being the advisors of choice for women because the service that we're delivering, the product that we're delivering and the way that we engage is relevant and fit for purpose. And I think that's, that's really what today is all about. It's about unlocking that. And, and if we look at the key takeouts, it's, it's kind of around an acknowledgement that everybody is fighting overwhelmed. The glasses are full. We need to tip some out and we need to simplify the message. We need to make sure that we're not talking in terms of of the technicals. We're talking in terms of the emotional engagement, the emotional endowment and, and the visioning of the future. And for that, I suppose the last point is we need to reframe and reposition how we tell that story, how we get people to the table, how we get them to unlock that compartment in their brain where they can see the benefits of this service. I love it, I love it.

We're going to take a few questions. I think the first question that I have is what is the one big change I can make when having conversations with female clients? So we've touched on that a little bit. Sinead, what, what is it for you? What's what's the nub to open this up?

I think it's just making it simple. I think it's losing the technical side of it. I think it's just making kind of retirement or you know, your second or your transition from the corporate world even into, you know, something else. Just making it more tangible and losing all the, the, the technical jargon around pensions. Because that is an aside. Because I think once you envision that future, then the pension and the fund and the tax relief fall into place. And it's probably because the advisers by definition are, you know, are prior prioritizing the technical aspects of the products because they have to and because of compliance and regulatory and all of that kind of stuff. But it's on a need to know basis. The client doesn't need to know that. Right. And, and, and, and they don't need to overwhelm the client with that. Like broadly across, across the industry, pension products, they're all pretty much homogeneous. And, you know, advisors are now planners, they're life coaches. And what they're there to do now is to probe the clients and, and like, and, and a female client and kind of just make it more tangible for them. And then once they once a client then kind of, you know, starts imagining their future self and kind of has a picture in place, they're kind of going, OK, how much do I need to put into the, and, and that that's when the money side of it comes in. But it's less of an issue like it you're you're more likely to contribute to a pension when you have the kind of the emotional and the the tangible side kind of address.

And isn't it a, you know, if you put the advisor, isn't it, it's really interesting to to sort of think of that my role as a life coach and, and, and connecting with that and conversations which around that and going to plug our second life questionnaire again. But actually, that's a tool. That's a coaching. Absolutely. That is a really, you know, and, and we talked to this earlier, which is that pension is an enabler. It's a means to an end. It's really important, but start with that sort of that that coaching conversation because it really is. Absolutely. And you know how powerful that you're interested in that kind of life experience, life ambitions, and you're listening to that. There's nothing more powerful than that.

There isn't and everybody wants to be heard, right. And we have a second question in and and by the way, the chat box is open, am I right? Yes, the chat box is open. So if you do have questions, comments, feedback, fabulous points of view that we you want to share, please do share. If you just want to tell us how brilliant we are, we're also willing to accept that. Second question we have is what is the biggest challenge in driving women's confidence and the confidence and engagement. I might come to you, Fiona, on that.

Umm, so I think it is demystifying. We've kind of touched on that. It's making it simple. It's demystifying it. Umm, it's umm, yeah. So I, I think it is. And, and also we'll talk quite a bit about that, about making the connection, putting yourself in the shoes, speaking a language that that actually makes it feel like you're, you are partnering or you're there working for me as opposed to I'm sitting in front of the scary financial advisor. And you know, I that are not really terribly sure about all of this. And I just want to kind of, yeah, nod, nod, nod. So it is about you're on my side, you're my coach, you're partnering with me.

Lovely. And, and I, yeah, I, I, I hear all of that. Umm, what resonated most with the panel when they considered how women were engaging or not with their pension planning? Um, I mean this, It's interesting to me that even the fact of having this event, having the fantastic audience that we have on board, the great registrations that we have means that there is a kind of a bubbling up of interest in this area. We know it's time to, you know, get serious about this, grow up and own our own financial future.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, so I have another question here, Sonia, as an outsider to our industry, what would you see as the most effective way to approach pensions with females?

Well, I, I think it really is having the conversations, taking the taboo away from talking about money at all. Like that's, that's the big one for me. You know, I talk all the time about financial empowerment because it's such a major part of our personal empowerment. Money is choice. That's all money is. It's, it's not, it's not the notes and the coins themselves. It's choice. It's the choice to live the life you want to lead. And, and the more that we can unlock our own personal value and recognize that, the more that we can create the right and best choices for our future. Anybody want to add into that?

As that was to the outsiders, so it was only for me anyway. We don't want to know. And if anybody does have any questions for Sinead and for Fiona, by all means, jump in. Oh, this is interesting. As someone has, again, as someone from outside the pension industry, do we simply need to remove the word pension from the conversation? We talked about this. Yeah. I mean, it's, it just seems like it's wearing the wrong tights, doesn't it? The word pension, It's, it's just not. Sexy. No, You know, and they're never going. To no, no. So it's, it's the reframing, it is not thinking about the pension. And I think it's not just pension, it's also retirement, right? So we touched on that earlier and I had a conversation with my mom. I think she was turning 50 at the time. So it wasn't today or yesterday. And I was like, what does it feel like to be 50? You know, does it feel kind of weird? And she said, she said to me, I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 20 or 30. It's just my body has changed a bit. It's the same me on the inside. And my mom, you know, she has dementia now and cautionary tales. We have to both live our lives right now, but we have to also protect for the future. And and it is that sense that just because we're going to have a different number attached to our lives doesn't mean that it's not us, you know, and I think we defer that. We think that when we're 60 or 70 or 80, we're going to be a different person. We're not. Think differently. But we won't, we won't. It's still us. And I still plan to be dancing in kitchens at the age of 70, 80, 90. That's my plan, that's what I want to be doing.

What would your top tip be for male advisor who has traditionally focused on the technical side of pension planning when engaging with female clients? Well, I, your name didn't come up, but thank you for asking that question because that is the whole raise on debt for the three of us being in this studio today. I'm going to go to both of you on that question.

Yeah. And and, and it is a difficult one, but for me and, and as I said earlier, it's not talking about the tax relief, it's not talking about the investment growth being tax free, it's not about. Your tax free lump sum, it's reframing it. It's your future self. What would you like to do in retirement and and what are your plans, your dreams, your goals? Do you want to reduce days? Do you want to give up on like entirely? You know, it's it's all of that and those probing questions and filling out that second life questionnaire, I think with a female client. That's what makes them pink and that's what makes and that's likely to, to kind of bring a call to action to my mind, because that's what would really worry you going. OK, I need to figure this out because we all kind of want to have some sort of a plan in place, especially when it comes to ourselves and how we're going to enjoy our, our future kind of life. So that that's the bit. So it's losing all the, the technical side of things. And I think then it's an easier conversation to have and.

I think it comes down to listening. It's as simple as that. Exactly. You know, people, I said it earlier, people want to feel heard. They want to feel like their opinion matters, that they are visible. And, and it is something that some women do struggle with, particularly with the, you know, the women who are lower in confidence, that there is a kind of an invisibility that comes with middle age. And and one of the things that a male advisor can do is to sit still, don't talk, listen, hear the answers go through the second life. Just be present and understand the perspective of the woman sitting in front of you and how you can help her and and and so taking the time to use your ears before you use your mouth is probably good advice.

Yeah, absolutely. Why is why is everything a for why is everything a form Second life questionnaire is the is fantastic idea. But as the panelists have just said, people want to be heard. So what? Well, I think if I can jump in, I'm going to come to you in a second for you. And if I can jump in, I think I think what's really helpful is that the second life questionnaire is, is the first part of the process. It's really about kind of getting that brain dump, putting it down on paper. The critical piece is the conversation that follows on. For sure. And and like absolutely. It is a tool. So and I think it is about framing and and doing a little bit of preparation and a bit about let's you know, get some thoughts together. Love to hear those. And and and I think it is an enabler. It is, as you said, it's it's the first step of the process. And you know if if if there was an objections to or somebody didn't want to form questionnaire, doesn't it provide an advisor with super questions or? Totally, it could become a a prompt for a walkthrough in in person. How do I frame it? What kind of areas do I explore? So I think it could be used in a lot of different ways. Totally, totally, yeah.

Is there anything that you would like to see as a sort of an additional support 'cause we, we were, we were talking about this in previous conversations. Is, is, is there kind of a next step? Is there something that can support the advisors further? I mean, what I'm thinking about it, you know, we, we talked about it earlier and I'm probably throwing a hand grenade into the conversation now. But you know, the, the question life or, or the Second life questionnaire is a fantastic tool. I didn't think there's another whole piece around the, the, the internal narrative that we have around money that's nearly a precursor to that. It'd be wonderful to see something like that coming to the fore because until you address those kind of critical narratives, um, you don't really understand where people are coming from with money. No, and and you might not understand your own relationship with money until you start kind of looking at that sort of a questionnaire or. Even as an advisor. Yeah, yeah, and and. It it it just. It gets you thinking and it does get get you engaged and there is a piece of work there Sonia, certainly. And and that's kind of where we're at. Yeah. So we have started off with this Second Life questionnaire and but we do clear it, like absolutely realise that's just because you fill in that that isn't. Yeah. Job done. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's a journey and it's an evolution and it's an evolution that Standard Life are on. And we're hoping to kind of be the the front runners in that and kind of continue that conversation. And I think that's, it's really, it's really clear to me that this session and other sessions that we've had have been as much about also listening to the feedback and about as much about us kind of saying, OK, brilliant. We've done so much. Where is the next step? What do, where do we need to take this? So, yeah, absolutely love it.

Umm, so we have a question here. What age should the clients be when we introduce the second life questionnaire? Oh, that's a meaty one. I love that I. Think it should be at all stages I was. Going to say yeah and you diagnostic. Yeah, that gives you 20 third. Yeah. So how do we open up pipelines then? I mean, you know, there's, there's a certain amount of, of clients that come into, into the advisors. And I suppose I'm asking the question, I'm kind of answering it in my head. At the same time, this notion of spark back in conversations, you know, with the next generation, like we all had the experience from our parents of pushing us to, to, to secure our financial futures as, as parents or as, as, as family members. It's to have those conversations. And, and maybe, you know, why not introduce the second life questionnaire to somebody who's still in education? They might roll their eyes a little bit, but you know, I think it'd be very interesting to see how they view it. You know, financial independence is freedom, correct? Girls should be encouraged in the home and in secondary school to plan their financial freedom earlier rather than later. We are half of the population after all, 51%, This needs to be addressed. And I think thank you so much for your point. That's exactly what we're saying. And and I think the earlier we start these conversations, the more fruitful the results and rewards are. Absolutely.

Do you think women and thank you so much for for your questions. It's really great because we learned so much about what's important to you through these conversations by you in putting. And there is a great turn of phrase which says that speaking to an audience without understanding what they want is like starting a love letter with to whom it may concern. And we don't want to do that. So do you think women are willing to pay a fee for an impartial pension planning or retirement planning review? What are your thoughts on this? I'm going to go to the experts over here.

I think so, absolutely. And I know friends of mine would have asked me, you know, do you, can you recommend any financial advisor, financial planners? And I kind of would have, you know, advised the way it works. And if you want a proper financial plan, you need to pay for that. And it is a life plan. It's your, you know, it's like for your whole, like it's your whole financial journey and and they were like, yeah. And I need. To go to the doctor, right? And that's exactly. It's the same thing, so it's your financial help. Exactly. Yeah. And I've and I've done that. So I've, I've engaged with one of our somebody in our one of our advisors on our advisor panel. And I'd actually prefer the thought that I'm paying from partial advice. And, and I think the other perception that was sort of shattered for me was that actually it's not as expensive as you might think and you can do it in different ways. And, and actually more than make back for me in terms of the sort of the, you know, the various sources I'm using, am I using the best value? Am I thinking about things that I need that I haven't thought about? So for me, I thought it was a fantastic exercise. The advisor that I partnered with who is, as I said on our panel was absolutely brilliant. And, and, and the other bet is that it's actually not as expensive as as I think we were great. And it's like, yeah, you're right. It's a service. It's another service in our lives. Absolutely.

I'm there's a question coming in here which I'm going to come to in a moment. I want to touch really quickly and we're, we're probably at time, but we're going to just go to finish off the questions. Can we talk a little tiny bit about women and risk? So women tend to be more risk averse than men when it comes to choosing pension plans. They they hold back. They're conservative, yeah. In in the funds in which they select. Is there a negative impact of that on their eventual returns, or can there be? Absolutely, Yeah. I suppose it's, it's, it's remembering a pension is a long term savings plan and obviously there's peaks and troughs throughout any sort of investment cycle. So I suppose it's understanding that and. Hold your metal. Yes, and at the moment markets across the world are down, but so the the, the, I suppose it's just remembering you have a plan in place and you're not going to be needing that money until age 60, 60, whatever age that is. And I suppose you don't need to keep looking at it every day, the values and that so. But at the same time, if you have a kind of a broad sense of what the market is doing that is an opportunity then when the market is down to put your bonus yes, lump sum in and to to better time to get that. But exactly exactly but. You don't even necessarily need to hold your battle because you know, and I know in our own internal pension scheme we have lifestyling. So I think again it's information, it's the power of information. You know it's different, you know, at different points in your life then you can. Change your profile. And actually there is that sort of that that kind of follows that. And I think again, it's the power of information to open up, you know, that you'd it's not always about risk and sometimes it's helpful to risk. Other times actually, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That more conservative approach, depending on where you are relative to that, to that next stage of the life. It's ages back to ages and stages again. Absolutely.

Final question and thank you so much for being so generous and contributing to the conversation. It's really, really valuable to us and we hope that this conversation has been valuable to you too. Uh, final question, I think financial planning retirement space is still heavily dominated by men. Do you see this changing in Standard Life and do you think if we had more women in the area that that would encourage larger conversations about pensions? I think so. I, I, I do think we need more female financial planners. It's a bit like in primary school teaching. I think you need more male primary teachers. So it's just there are certain sectors that just seem to be dominated by either like males or females and financial planning seems to be one that is dominated. That sounds like an opportunity to me for everybody. So let's just have a little look at what we we came up with today in terms of of takeouts. Once again, we're kind of looking at a new world order where we are communicating the benefits of pensions in a new way. We don't even like the word anymore. We don't like the landscape. But what we are doing is creating an emotional endowment. And we're, we're really kind of thinking about our communications in terms of simplifying, fighting the overwhelm, listening, letting people pour out and changing our mindset in how we approach to unlock huge benefits, both for the client and for the advisor community as well. Sinead and Fiona, thank you so much for your conversation. Thanks for your generosity, for sharing your own personal stories. It's been my pleasure. I'm Sonia Lennon for Standard Life. Thank you very much.
 

Good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome to the first of our summer series webinars. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to come and join us. Hard to believe it's halfway through the year already, 1st of July. And before we start, just a quick word of thanks for all your support during the year. We've had a very strong start to the year and that is down to our the strength of our relationships and support from our advisor partners. So thank you. Obviously, we're going to continue to invest in the proposition, trying to bring you the best content, the best support and the best service to enable you to deliver the best advice to ensure your plans get great outcomes. So that will be evolving over the rest of the year as well.

I'm sure you're aware Standard Life, where Life Saving Company is specializing in retirement. We have a fundamental belief that the customer journeys to, through and enjoys their retirement. We should be viewing it as their second life, certainly over the last 10 to 15 years. And all the research from our our latest report, Bring Retirement into Focus, backs this up that retirement is changing. The longer is it a destination, It is a process of change. At the heart of that process, we have what we call 3 retirement readiness indicators, and they're key to having the most fulfilling second life that you can. The first one that's kind of obvious is being financially prepared, obviously having the resources and being able to fund and fulfill that lifestyle that you want. The second area is, of course, social connection, making sure you're maintaining relationships and local community interactions. And the third one is being mindset ready, making sure that you're purposefully engaged as you journey to through and through retirement.

The latest research we have both from bringing retirement into focus and from the UK faints a pretty good picture in terms of we're making progress on the retirement journey and socializing that out in the community, which is really positive. However, challenges remain. For example, in Ireland, 29% of people feel financially prepared for retirement, which is quite a low number. Secondly, in the UK, two in five are two in five clients worried that retirement savings won't last their lifetime. So across both markets, it's clear the clients are saying that they want their income in retirement. They want to level security, flexibility and guidance. And just the back of that of nine in 10 advisors, I'm sorry, 9 and 10 advised clients are now saying they want some level of guaranteed income in their retirement. So they want freedom, they want security, they want accessibility, they're looking for it all. And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

So today's session is really a conversation about looking at post retirement income, some of the changes that are happening, the research that we're that we're we're seeing and some of the changes from a product point of view as well. So I'm joined today by Shay Macfar, Head of Retirement Solutions and Joanna Smith from Proposition Strategy Manager. And we're going to be talking, I suppose about some of the changes we're seeing, how we're going to cope with that and of course how we look at these challenges and convert them into opportunities. Shayla, I'm going to start with you from from your point of view, obviously there's been a lot of change in the last 12 to 18 months from the legislative point of view. There has been a lot of change from the research point of view in terms of how the clients are evolving in post retirement. How are you seeing? What's standing out from your point of view from retirement planning in the last 12 months?

Thanks, Alan. Yeah, I think there's kind of been a real, there's real momentum in pension awareness, auto enrolment, which we're all familiar with at this stage. It's it's kind of really bringing pensions to the fore and people are now starting to think about their future finances and that's obviously a really good thing. Supplementary pensions, they're no longer announced to have, they really are essential if you want to live that kind of financially secure second life. And, and our research tells us that 61% of adults that we surveyed like they believe that pension planning is essential, but actually 41% of those researched of, of those individuals have no plan in place. So really the gap is really wide between intent and action. And I suppose, you know, with people becoming more aware of pensions and the importance of them, hopefully that gap will actually begin to close and.

This is the ongoing problem. As for the, it's had for, for for eons at this stage while the progress had been made and there was a gap, but still the average pension policy level 20,000 is still very low. So trying to get that to creep up is going to be a challenge, yeah. Absolutely and it's, it's always going to be an issue and, and structurally things have changed as well. We saw that the PRSA being made a whole of life product last year and we see and and we know that in, in scheme drawdown is on the horizon for group schemes, master trust, the the defined contribution structures and that kind of means that individuals technically could remain in the one pension structure for over 50 years. So that's a real shift. But I think considering that you can't actually assume that you know, income drawdown will meet the kind of full retirement needs for clients when you're considering their retirement income.

And that's a key point. We're going to come back to that in a few moments. But it's interesting to talk about the as well as the the structural changes. And from your point of view, John, you know, when I think of structure and I think the proposition, obviously you've got to keep adapting the proposition to to match these changes. But what are the big, I suppose, takeaways from you over the last one? Yeah, so, so much. I'm really delighted to see that the pension conversation is coming more and more into the mainstream and more people have been encouraged to save and plan for retirement. But I do wonder, are the conversations that are happening around that going deep enough And pensions adequacy is one thing, but we know that there is more to being ready for retirement than just being financially ready. You've mentioned it already, Alan. You need to be socially prepared, mentally prepared and financially prepared for retirement. You need the right mindset. And then that's why we often talk about finding that balance between the human and the financial side of money. And I think the conversations that we need to be having around pensions need to be a little bit more rounded to include all three. And then when the plan includes all three, that not only helps people be more prepared for retirement, but also helps them feel more empowered about retirement. So that's although the pension's adequacy I think is being covered a little bit more. I'm not sure that that last piece is really coming into the fore just yet.

And this is what makes it completely holistic. And This is why I was trying a plan is central, but it is it's constant advice and guidance throughout their journey is, is going to be needed. And so I should have said, because I'm looking at my screen here, I should have said down at the bottom right hand side of your screen. If you do want to ask any questions at any stage, it'll pop up here. And I would like to put it to, to Sinead and Joanne. So we've, we've mentioned a couple of challenges there in terms of adequacy, human side of financial, human side of financial side of money. I'm going to before we get into looking at some possible solutions, it's going to ask you both the frame as well as the key challenges you see. So our advisors are out advising customers on a daily basis as they journey to and true and I'm sure they they could probably add on 20 challenges. But I'm going to ask you, Sinead, you first, what are I suppose from from your point of view, looking at from a technical point of view and the advisor queries coming in, what are the three big challenges you see from a retirement planning point of view? And then Joanna, I've come 2 for three as well if you don't want.

Yeah, well the the 1st for me is longevity and uncertainty. You know. How how long will someone live and will they outlive their retirement savings? Outliving your retirement savings is a real risk. One in two males live until they're age 85. One in two females living are living until they're age 87, and then one in four are living well into their 90s. So I suppose a retirement plan and your retirement income should really reflect those possibilities by having that kind of of, you know, guaranteed income alongside your your income drawdown and kind of other, other savings elements. It's interesting when I hear that, I often think, you know, I hear the 87 and 85 quite a lot, but you almost think maybe there's a bit of a bleak way of looking at that. That's the that's the end. But actually one in four are getting into the 90s and that's a different way of looking at it. We've got to think of it that way. 25% of us are going to hit their 90s and we would need funding. And that's going to extend on and on as healthcare and and all of that improves. So yes, so, yeah, so there should always be an element of guaranteed income given you know, how long we are, how long we are all living. And my next risk is obviously market uncertainty and volatility in markets like enrolls anyone's confidence, even the most kind of confident investor, especially when it's their drawdown income. And then with that like and, and obviously and and then obviously it also erodes your return funds and especially in your earlier years, that's a bigger impact. But I suppose by putting strategy strategies in place like sequencing that can kind of.

Impact. So this is sequencing risk essentially. Yeah. So you know, we don't know when we're going to die. We don't know about the returns they're going to be and we don't know the order of those returns, OK. So, so a lot of challenges straight away, but we're only two in, OK. Yeah. And my third one is, so we talk about coverage and adequacy together and I spoke about coverage earlier, but actually adequacy is a key risk for most people and they are really concerned about it. And while most people have some sort of pension provision, they just don't have enough to kind of live that financially secure second life. But I guess for as long as you're working, there is time to kind of change that around and you know, add to your pension fund. So it's, it's never too late. It's always my my advice. But This is why the plan has said something OK, so that returns and and having a pot big enough to fund your lifestyle possibly into your 90s. OK. So from your point of view, give me your your three challenges you see from a propositional point of view and a customer what you do? Yeah. So I think a key challenge is framing the advice. So there's a big shift from that pre retirement conversation, quite financial conversation around how much have you saved? How much have you built up to that? A conversation around, OK, what do you want this money to do for you? And that's quite difficult to frame that with clients to switch from that more financial conversation to more of a lifestyle conversation. And with that it brings emotions. So it brings clients to a whole new level of talking about their hopes and dreams, all the fun stuff. And then also around health, end of life, more difficult conversations and then to try and reframe the advice around that can be quite a challenge to move to that space with flights, yeah. Because there is what we call it Second Life, second life, there are stages as well. And we got to be conscious of that. Okay, so framing advice, how the time goes through the journey and how the advisor is, is, is supporting. Okay, so that's number four. So your 5th and 6th, I'm sorry, your second and third for you. So one that's never going away is the product and regulatory complexity. And so solutions can often feel too binary. So they're either too risky or they're too rigid and they don't meet those flexible needs that you mentioned clients are looking for. You mentioned at the start, Alan, that 9 out of 10 clients are looking for guaranteed lifelong income, but they also want the freedom to access their money flexibly. They want it all though. They want it all, and I don't blame them. So how can we give clients that in a way that's simple, easy to understand and then freeze them up to their retirement? So this is where we see the tailored solutions are needed. People need a tailored blended plan. But then this is also all against the backdrop of a regulatory environment that's constantly changing, but it's also stagnant at the same time since it's a difficult environment. But it doesn't go back to the point you mentioned security and flexibility. But the other key aspect is they want the guidance as well. So you know, Sinead mentioned, you know invested pure state as an example, you potentially have a plan now for 50 or 60 years. And even if a point of retirement is not a case of 1 and done, good luck, there is a journey ahead and there will be different alterations to the plant and the product as we go along and. Arguably a more important journey. Fair. Yeah, absolutely fair. In particular, because we're, we're, we're, I wouldn't say we're taught where there's an element of before you retire, it's all about saving, saving, building that pot and then suddenly you flip over. It's like now you can spend it. So there's a hesitancy there and that might lead into your your last challenge. It does. So the the biggest challenge to try and solve in retirement is that spending hesitation. So that's that fear the clients have when it gets to retirement of actually spending down that pot. And that's that's a really big impact in terms of people's retirement. So if you can imagine, people are spending a lot less than they can actually afford to spend. They're spending quite frugally because they have a fear that they're going to run out of money in retirement. And that's fuelled by all of the things you spoke about, Sinead. So it's the sequencing risk. They don't know how long they're going to live. It's the longevity they don't want. Market returns are going to be like, they don't know what their spending is going to be like in the future, what the impact of inflation is. And all of that combines into into of fear that then impacts their willingness to spend down that capital fund. So I think we've got a really crucial role to play in that to try and help alleviate that fear, Encourage people to spend down their fund, you know, asking them the question, what's that money for? Why did we save up that money in the 1st place and encourage them to live a fulfilled second life? Yeah. I want to come back to that point because I think that's the key question. But it's interesting we we talk about the spending hesitancy, but what's very clear is that it's coming through in the research, but it's also coming true from a factual point of view. And if I just look at standard life's experience and our drawdown book into arts, Sinead Arts here for the last 25 years, I'm going to say since. 19 99, yes, OK, so and, but really the growth has been in the last 15 years, yes, yes, exactly. But the satellite over 80% of our drawdown products, the clients drawdown the minimum 4%, which really indicates there is a hesitancy there, there is a problem there spent a whole life building this up and you're you're worried about spending it. OK. So I want to go back to that question because I like that questions and what's the money for? Can you give me a bit more context on that, that question where that's coming from? Yes, So I could talk about this all day, but I'll try enough to. So we've spent years due to people to focus on pot size, save for retirement, build up as big a fund as you can. But then when it comes to retirement, that's not really the important piece anymore. You know, what's in the pot is in the pot at that stage. And what we need to switch the focus to is how can we use that phone that's been built up to provide for a fulfilling Second life? And that's going to look different for everybody. What's a fulfilling Second Life for you, Alan? It's going to be different than mine. So what we all want to spend our money on to create that lifestyle is all going to be different. So I think to get clients thinking in that mindset, asking them the question, what's the money for, encourages them to think about what their Second Life might be like. And all of the answers are going to be different, but there is one fundamental how money is there to be spent. So you've mentioned it already on that's what we've been saving up for. That's what we've been building up these retirement funds for. That's why we've been so disciplined in building up this pot. It's so that we can spend that money in retirement, We can enjoy retirement, we can live a satisfied life. But the problem is from back to spending hesitancy, we know that people are not doing that. They're not spending their funds. And, and it's very obvious that they're not. Yeah. I'm going to give you a little challenge because I can almost feel a few advisors in in their mind going that makes sense together. I see it with my clients every day and I fully appreciate they're not spending what they're without spend. However, when I think about guarantees, I think about immunities. When I think about immunities, I think about restrictions and I think about limitations and I think about bad rates, etcetera. Can you give me a bit of context on that? Yeah. So I think we need to get away from the all or nothing mindset. So there's a lot of research out there about this spending hesitancy piece. So I might actually just start with trying to get into the mindset of why are people afraid to spend in, in the 1st place? And then I'll, I'll look into, into your question. I'll. So if we think about it, people have spent all of these years building up this fund in this saving mindset to then switch to the, to that spending mindset is quite a difficult switch. And it's quite a, it's quite a rational way to think when you talk about all of the risks that you outline, Sinead, they don't know how long this money is going to last or how long this money needs to last. So they tend to react quite frugally in terms of income. And then there's also the irrational piece of you've been watching that fund grow over time. I had then to see it go the other way. So, but there is research out there out there that supports how we can help people overcome this and how advisors can help clients. So with retirees, when they're receiving an income in retirement that's coming from a guaranteed lifelong income source, research tells us that they will spend more freely and more confidently than they would if it was coming from a draw down type vehicle. I think that's quite compelling. So when people are receiving an income that's guaranteed, we're removing that fear of running out of money and they are likely to spend twice as much as they would if they were taking it from a from a pot of money. OK. So is this almost, is it as simple as saying that if you're drawing down from capital, it's different than if you're drawing down from income? I know we're not drawing down from income, but it's that notion that this is coming off my capital. Actually, this is a paycheck which is different. It's exactly that, yeah. And in answer to, to, to your question that you raised, I don't think it's an all or nothing, you know, we're not suggesting. So obviously annuities provide confidence to spend. That's what all the research tells us. It gets rid of that fear of running out of money and people can live a more confident, happy retirement. We're not saying you should 100% invest in a, in an annuity. I think there's a balance to be found. But once it's the foundational level of guaranteed income, it gives that confidence to spend and then the remainder can be invested to provide for that flexible spending that people want to leave a legacy, you know, really different for the future. I do think there's a blend to be found that people need tailored solutions. So this is all about really finding the plan that matches their story. So if you think about the story you all have like, sorry, from my point of view, my money story, hopefully when I do get into the 90s is that I spent a long time accumulating, but earning. And then I need to make sure that when I, when I flip over that I'm not just coming from a capital, but I'm also, I continue some type of paycheck. So money story is important. Exactly so, and I think this is where the advice piece comes in as well, because everybody has a different money story. Everybody has a different attitude towards money. Everyone has a different plan for their time. And so that's where the the tailored advice really comes in. I think Sanya Lemon sums up the money story piece really well for anybody that's not familiar with it. It's where you learn to budget, spend, save. It's your attitude towards money and it's how you learn that. And I think we need to encourage people to reconnect with their money stories when it comes to retirement and give themselves permission to spend that money that they have built up and spend that money that they have earned on things that bring them joy, things that bring them purpose, and things that give them a fulfilled second life. Because as you've said, your money story is going to be different to my money story. And I think that's where the question is so critical is what's the money for?

OK, So that's the key question. What's the money for but then trying to craft the plan. So Sinead, we've been talking about this, you talk to advisors about this the whole time, get lost queries and we see are to come in. We see and usually come in, but we're also starting to see an increase in, in the blend. Yeah, you might talk us through, I suppose some options you've looked at. And I I wouldn't stress we are going to put a slide up on on screen. This is purely illustrative. It is based on on a couple. We'll we'll go through the details, but this is just to give an example of what can be done in terms of post retirement and how you can put a plan together. Yeah. And I and I, I suppose when you start off, you kind of divide your kind of income ones and income needs and wants needs are, you know, are basic needs what you need to keep the lights on. You have another word. You you have another way of saying that. Alan, what I often, you put me on the spot now I often look at this is that in your retirement, it's it's your eating and eating. So how do you, how do you take care of the basics? Then it's your lifestyle, then it's your discretionary and then it's your legacy. But you will phrase it much more eloquently than I will. Yeah. So it's it's it's needs and wants and needs are are addressed. Simply put, needs are addressed through your guaranteed income. So that's your. State pension, your immunity and then your wants is your kind of income fraud. And that gives you the flexibility to spend and adapt your and to adapt your spending if that's what you want to do Umm, and then this kind of what it does is is that it addresses probably, you know, that longevity risk. You're not afraid of running out of money, running out of money spending with confidence. Again, you're not afraid of running out of money. You have that guaranteed income legacy planning, which is something that's very important to most. It's allowing someone to leave their best of purest age. They're kind of next in kin, next of kin or and lastly, it is inflation risk and it allows you to adjust your spending in inflation, OK. So you, you've taken that scenario. So what we've done again, we've we've made-up a pot here, we've made-up a married couple. And by the way folks, if anyone wants to see the, the numbers or the calculations behind these, happy to send that slide on later on. But for today's purpose, it's a 750,000 fund. We've taken the full tax free lump sum that we can leaving a pot of 562. Yeah. So talk us through the we've looked at traditional options and blending options. You might talk us through the the the examples. So with these are three different options that that can help you achieve that target income. And in this example here it's 60,000 in target income. And I suppose the scenario is a married couple 2 full state pensions that's thirty circuit 30,000. And when I'm talking about income drawdown here, the just it was based on 4% growth rate per annum and charges of 1.1% all in. So that's .5 trail .6 AMC. And then when I'm talking about annuity, just to be mindful, it is a level pension and it is spouse pension of 50% and the Commission is 2%. So this scenario here the, the, the first one is targeting an income. So it's drawdown. So it's targeting an income of 30,000 and I say 30,000 because we know that the, the other 30,000 has been met by the state pension. So 30,000 from your retirement fund, 562500. And as we were saying earlier, you know, 9 in 10 people are taking full, are using their full retirement fund and investing it in and are for investor Pure SA. So this is what we're seeing. So we were targeting here 30,000 from your pension, your, your, your, your private pension income. And this allows you to draw down 30,000 per annum. And then by age 88 you'd have 107,000 left. In theory that could go to 91, but that's, well, what you have. That's and of. Course, depending on the market conditions on these these norms. So the assumption is 4% per annum. So that's obviously. Yeah. And the key point here I think is we were targeting an income of 60,000. Yes. So that's the. So it's 60,000, but it's 30,000 from your. Pension, yeah. From your private French funds and this gives you flexibility, but there's no guarantee because as we know, our income can run out during your lifetime and that is a real possibility and that's always the risk with your ARF. So that is there. I say based on, on recent years, that's the traditional route people go. And when they go that route, we typically see that they're a little bit hesitant to spend as Johanna's talking about and they they typically take out the minimum 4%. And and this example of 30,000 is actually 5.3 or 5.4%. So it's above that because we're targeting the $60,000. So straightforward. Well, go on to the second one then where you're looking at, right, How do we blend it to match that 60,000? Yeah. And and this is what we've been talking about. So it's combining your guaranteed income and your income drawdown. So in this scenario, again, we have the 30,000 state pension, but the clients then decided actually they wanted an additional 10,000 euro €10,000 guaranteed income. So they were able to use of their part OF5625001901000 to buy 10,000 of an annuity from age 65. And that left a pot of about 370,000 in your income drawdown. And in income drawdown then you were able to draw down 20,000 per annum and by age 88 you were left with 67,000. So it's the same in theory that can go to age 91. So that was so you're achieving the same income, but you have that you, you have a much higher proportion of guaranteed income and that's what we're talking about here. And people then can spend more confidence when you have that higher portion of guaranteed income. So in this example, it's 40,000. This is. Going back to to John's point that we're bringing in the level of guarantee, you've got 40,000 coming in, but you still have flexibility and you could still tick the box for discretionary and legacy. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So it's true. So if achieving it in the same way you have that kind of confidence to spend. And then lastly, and this is something that probably has probably been used over the years, but I think it's still worth kind of pointing it out. So at the output at the outset, when an individual is retiring and that the couple are retiring, that's got 562500 You know, they at that, at that stage, they don't want to buy an immunity at all. So they're saying, OK, we'll invest in an income drawdown. That's your best of peers a or your RF and they're kind of confident with the markets. So they're happy at that stage and they do want that income adaptability. So they invest in their income drawdown and they're able to draw down 30,000 per annum between age 65 and 75. But then things change and markets have changed and actually their confidence has eroded and actually what they really want from age 72, 25 is certainty and security. So then they decide at that stage, let's use that 400,000 that's remaining in that income drawdown fund to purchase an annuity. And at that stage, obviously you've staggered the annuity drawdown or the annuity purchase. So annuity rates are much higher. So they're in excess of 7%. So that 400,000 would buy a guaranteed income of 30,000 per annum. So it means then that you have 30,000 guaranteed income of 30,000 per annum from age 70, 65 onwards. So that's just three options and how you can achieve that same kind of target income of 60,000. But I suppose when you compare the drawdown with the last one like the the drawdown that there is no kind of guarantee. Yeah, and that so. Trying to get the balance right. And again, it shows why products of course are important and they they continue to evolve. Really the most central thing though here is the plan for this call and how do you tick the boxes that they're trying to. So again, we're looking at some point of view research, it's 9:00 and 10:00 with some level of guarantee, but they want flexibility as well. So how do you, how do you square that circle? Yeah, and. And everyone's retirement plan is going to be different, so it will look differently for everyone. Sure. And actually timely because the questions just come in and I'm going to put it to you Joanne, because not surprised to see this. The the question is, this makes sense, but what about falling annuity rates? Or what if the rate is of good? I suppose you know, should it be driven by a rate? I don't think so. I think we're missing the point of it. I think we're always going to get this question and this challenge is always going to come up. But I suppose like any other financial decision that we make in our lives, we don't just make it best Hamas, you know, humans, there's always going to be an emotional psychological element to our decision making. So in terms of of the annuity rates, it shouldn't really matter what the rate is today, what it was yesterday or it's going to be in five years time. It's the point that retirement outcomes can be significantly improved and people's lives in retirement, their satisfaction can go up if they have a guaranteed source of income. And that's fundamental, It's research to back that up. So it's about ensuring that people have a fulfilled second life and buying some stream of annuity income is going to, it's going to provide that for people and the rate. So 15 years later, no one's going on which I waited for the rate to go they're. Going to have enjoyed confidently spending their money. Yeah. And and when you're staggering the purchase of immunity like from age at age 75, you're always going to get a much higher rate and that's. A key point, the rates go up the older you get. So if you delay it you go draw down 1st and really annuity and make up at age of 75 your rate is going to be considerably higher. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then you, you take away the uncertainty of market returns at a, at a vulnerable time as well. Yeah, or potentially vulnerable time. OK, that's really interesting. Of course, your business manager would be delighted to talk you through those slides and the details behind them. And any variation is adjustable obviously depending on on I suppose the way you view the world going forward. John, from your point of view though, we're we're hearing from customers what they're looking for. We're seeing products evolve and legislation change. We're talking about the challenges and advisors talk to us all day long about I suppose some of the issues customers are bringing to them. What's next? Where are we going from here? Yes, I think we've demonstrated throughout the conversation that really it's income solutions, blended, tailored solutions that we need to be building for clients and where all of those individual products fit into that. So the ART, the annuity and the vested PSA. And we've already done a bit of work in, in evolving those individual propositions. I think we've got them to a good place. So we've got the foundations in place. So now we're going to be switching our focus to figure out how can we help advise us with this piece. So how can we help with the positioning and the creation of these tailored blended solutions for customers. So that's what we're going to be putting our focus into call forward, OK. Brilliant Jane. John, thank you so much for taking the time and for all the advices online. Thank you for for joining us this morning. I wouldn't stress that we've taken a high level top down view to this challenge. What it is backed up by research and by the numbers. Of course, we also need to look at it from a different point of view. And the next webinar, I'd encourage you to register for Tower. I'd done over head of our engagement and Sonia Lennon's Second Life mentor are going to take it from a different angle there. Essentially, you can take it from a bottom up from the customer point of view and going back to this point around getting the balance right through the financial side, the money and the Cuban side of money and trying to make sure we we tick the boxes and all those readiness indicators being financed, be prepared, socially connected and mindset prepared. So for me, if anything, though, any key question I'm getting in today's while there's plans and there's blends, what's the money for is where we should be starting. And that's how we we plan the plan plan. That's how we put in place a plan for that customer to achieve what they want and increase that spending so that they can enjoy their second life. Thank you as always for taking the time and look forward to seeing you next time. Take care. Bye bye.

Good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome to the third webinar in our Winter series. As always, thank you for taking the time to come and join us. My name is Alan McCarthy and in the moment I'm going to be introducing you to Evan Hanrahan, Director of Compliance, Governance and Training, who will be joining us from Limerick to take us through our ethics webinar. We appreciate it's a very busy time of the year for everyone, so thank you for taking the time to join us and also thank you for your support during the year. There's been a lot going on in the year, both markets and we'll continue with the recent or so with the news this week and of course legislative and regulatory wise. So thank you for the support. It really does mean a lot to us.

I mentioned this is the third in our winter series. There's two more that should have just popped up on the screen. First one's on 14th of November, which will be a Vanguard market outlook with money here. And then on the 28th of November smaller is updated with the fund manager Andrew, Andrew Paisley and Rory MacDonald, who will be looking at the output for smaller companies into the new year. So today is about ethics part of our support proposition. It's not just products, funds and services, etcetera. Of course, we do look at our support from a very holistic point of view as well. And with so much change occurring and likely changing the future, I think it's very important that we tap in to see what's going on in the world of ethics.

So Evelyn, you're very welcome. Thank you always for taking the time to join us. I would say that there is a Q and A function down at the bottom right hand side of your screen. So if you do have any questions as everyone goes through the presentation, please feel free to pop in there and I'll put them to everyone at the end. Evelyn, good morning and over to yourself.

Alan, thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. A pleasure to be here as always. And as Alan has said, appreciate it. It's a really busy time of year and I also acknowledge that ethics is a compulsory module, but how Whenever I would do my best, I endeavour to do my best to make it as interesting as I possibly can. So as Killian moves through to the next slide, the link that I'm making this year between within the context of ethics is ethics and conflicts of interest. And the reason for that is that there is an inextricable link between the two of them. And also, I think sometimes phrases like conflicts of interest and kind of maybe throw them out there and not quite fully understand what exactly we mean by them or what exactly it means for us.

And if we could just pop to the next slide, please. And again, in that context of conflicts of interest, some are real, some are perceived. You know, it's, it's a it's AII actually find it a very interesting area because it's probably not as it's not defined per SE. But yet in just a moment, I will share with you some definitions. What I would like to do, I'd like to ask you to do as I set the scene for this particular module is first of all, what is a conflict of interest? And then why are conflicts of interest ethically significant? Then I have a little gap which I'm going to come back to. And then what can you do to avoid being in one? A lot of what I read and what you will read and hear in relation to conflicts of interest is all very what I call academic. It's very word based, if you like. It's very brain based. So that's why I have my little gap in the third bit. See my icon is the brain and then you have the bigger 1. So we're constantly being asked to think about this, you know, think it through. And a lot of it then is logic and it's our brain. But an actual fact. I think we're, we're missing a step here in the sense that you have to engage that gut feeling as well.

Now what I would like you to do in the context of this as I move through definitions and a couple of case studies, is have a think about maybe situations that you were in in the past or maybe you are in now and that you will actually look at the situation with the different lens based on what I hope and it really is all you can do is prepare and hope. Hope it works based on what I'd share with you today that it might make you go, oh, maybe I should go and look at that here. Oh, that's interesting. My thought process around that would have been different last year had I maybe been more informed as to what exactly a conflict of interest is. So Killian is going to pop us on to the next slide. And as you can see, there are multiple definitions of conflicts of interest or to define a conflict singular of interest. And what it all comes back down to is it's that push pull between your professional duties and responsibilities and perhaps a kind of a personal interest. So sticking with the academic peace, conflict of interest occurs. And and this is they're saying it occurs. This isn't a kind of, it might conflict of interest occurs when an entry or individual becomes unreliable because of a clash between personal interests and professional duties and responsibilities.

And I jump around these little definitions a bit and I'm jumping to the last one because in conflicts of interest we look to real, perceived, apparent. There's a number of kind of aspects to this. It's not enough to say, you know, Oh well, no, no, no, no, that hasn't happened yet. No, no, no. You've got this perception and apparent and the phrase that consistently comes up in any of the academic papers that I would read on this consistently, the phrase is reasonable person. So an apparent conflict of interest is 1, which a reasonable person would think that a professional judgement is likely to be compromised. Then going up a little bit, it says in business a conflict of interest arises when a person chooses personal gain over duties to their employer or exploits their position for personal gain in some way. And so they're the things that you need to put into into the back of your mind. It's that personal interest, professional responsibilities and duties, etcetera. And obviously I'm going to elaborate on all of that a bit more as we then pop on to the next slide.

In the context then of those definitions, keep in mind, I suppose it goes back to that ethics piece of old, you know, when somebody, how would you behave if you thought someone was watching you? Now, I don't particularly like that one as a benchmark. I'd like to think it's more kind of inherent in you. Then you're only doing it because you'd think somebody might have seen you. But I suppose look, it's all part of that process. If you like blending, then this concept of conflict of interest or a or conflicts of interest into ethics and where does this all fit? So ethics often I use the particular little, I suppose image when I'm doing the training. It's about integrity, having a strong moral compass, behaving honestly, ethically. There's that word again and look at the way the word responsibility is in there. So in looking up kind of trying to find out link between ethics and conflicts of interest, there was a very good paper written in the University of Columbia. It was actually through their Department of Medicine and then linked to the depart, the department rather of psychology. So what this, ER, professor was saying was that how do you determine whether you, whether the situation you are in is like to interfere or appear to interfere with the independent judgment that you're supposed to show as a professional? Because I think we do need tools to help us perhaps navigate, uh, this particular area, not to always race to a very, if you like, a black and white conclusion.

Uh, in this paper, uh, this, uh, this academic spoke strongly about this trust. The trust in their opinion is at the ethical heart and core of any issues pertaining conflicts of interest. And their point was if you apply a trust test then you have a pretty good benchmark as to whether you're in some way conflicted and it is as follows. The trust test is would relevant others, meaning my employer, my clients, my professional colleagues or in some cases the general public trust my judgement if they knew I was in this situation. And that's a good way of thinking about it. So I'm in a particular situation and if, if we'll say one of my professional colleagues was aware, would they still trust my judgement in terms of making this business decision? And I'm not going to answer it for you because as part of what I'm hopefully trying to kind of bring through in this presentation are some some means of answering these questions. But interestingly, in this paper, they then say that the ethical responses to this trust test are straightforward. And then I would actually say if they're so straightforward, why is so much written around context of interest, conflicts of interest and, or behaving ethically in the context of such conflicts?

So again, I'm going to go to the next slide, which I think, if memory serves it correctly has the, umm, the, the case studies, which uh, are often, I think more helpful than necessarily speaking to kind of academic definitions, umm, all the time. So I've chosen the two particular images, umm, intentionally, umm, 1 is umm, because at the beginning of, uh, board meetings, in particular, the, the agenda item, good corporate governance would say that you ask the, the board members you know, has, are there any conflicts of interest, anything anyone would like to declare? And 99.9% of the time it's no, I have nothing to declare. And probably the more interesting meetings nearly are where somebody has. But it it just ensures by having a top of the agenda at a board meeting, it means that board members do give it thought. And it's certainly something that the central bank would see that they would like to see very strongly on a board agenda. And it's not that the individual must absent themselves from the entire board meeting. They must just recuse themselves from the portion of the meeting where the potential conflict is being discussed. So an example being you're looking to outsource a function to a third party. And I, as the director, have a son or daughter working in the company or I have shares in the company, or I play tennis with somebody on the board of that company, something along those lines. They're the things that you need to be mindful of.

While the second one then is neither are I have actually three case studies. I have one in reserve just in case, as I said to Alan and Killian earlier, in case I speak way more quickly than I have timed this too. So we won't have a big, a big gap in the timing. So the other image that's there relates to potential conflicts of interest that can arise when employees working in the same organization have a personal relationship. Now again, for those of you working in large organisations, there is more than likely HR policy around this. Whether it is something that is encouraged, discouraged or positively is positively the right word. When you say prohibited, I don't know, but it can cause difficulties in an organization. Now this was stock, you know, stock image from Google images. I'm not saying this is how it always unfolds, but just if you step back.

So when the relationship is working really well, you know, and absolutely it's very American as you know. Hey, honey, I think you deserve a raise and you deserve a kiss. Then things go pear shaped and especially then when there's a seniority that there isn't necessarily A and that the two individuals aren't in the same at the same grade. If you like within an organization where one person is more senior than another. And then there can be issues arising even if we were to step away from conflicts of interest. So it's I'll sack you, you know the relationship has gone sour. Then it's, I'll sue you for, or I'll charge you for harassment, but it, so if we're to take away from kind of that sort of slightly sort of tongue in cheek piece, the conflict of interest there, would be where there are two individuals of potentially for promotion or for a pay rise. And one of the individuals potentially in a position to make a decision to promote one over the other is in a personal relationship. But nobody knows. That's a conflict of interest. And again, you know, as we move through the various bits and pieces, you know, I do give some kind of guidance on what you can do if you find yourself in that set of circumstances.

And then for Killian, now we're going to stay in this, this slide for a minute or two because I do want to run through the, the particular case studies, which I, the reason for the case studies is like anything, it's like when you're doing complaints training, it's better when you have an example. So the first example that I'm going to share with you is the following. All right. So the particular lady's name in this instance is Alice and she has been appointed to the role of operations manager in a corporate brokerage. And let's say it's based in Dublin. Obviously all of this is fictitious if we have an Alice listening. So one of Alice's responsibilities in her new role is to manage the cleaning contract within the corporate brokers offices. That's part A of her very busy role. Alice's daughter is at university and is in a long term relationship with Daniel. Daniel's father runs a cleaning company which has been contracted to clean the corporate broker offices for the last two years. Alice was not aware of this Alice then she wasn't aware of it until she started in her new role. Having started in her role, Alice has discovered that there have been several complaints about the cleanliness of the kitchen area, the general office area and in particular the toilet area, all of which would fall under Daniel's father's company's responsibility. Alice has also observed that the kitchen has not been cleaned on several occasions and that generally speaking, it's not up to the standard that you would have expected based on her previous employment role.

The contract is due for the cleaning contract rather is due for renewal and it would be under Alice's remit that she would look to seek further tenders from others and or make a decision as to who would actually, if you like be awarded the tender for the cleaning contract. Alice as we now know has a personal association with Daniel and his father. Both of these create both an actual and perceived conflict of interest and also if you like a risk for Alice in the decision making process. So if this was kind of, if you like a kind of a smaller group and we were all sitting around having our cup of tea in our scone, you might be doing that, albeit remotely. We maybe might have a little chat about this. Umm, but in the context of this, because I still think that the case studies are worth, sharing with you in the context of this, I'm just going to go straight to what the, if you like, what the advice in the context of this would be to Alice if she sought someone's advice. So the first, she shouldn't even need to seek advice in that senior operations manager role that this person has this capacity to make this type of a decision and to identify the conflict of interest should be part of either training the individual has had or just general kind of management that that's what is expected of you at that level.

So as soon as Alice becomes aware of this conflict of interest, she should report her association to the operations director is what I'm going to say. It would obviously depend on every organization as to what reporting structures that they have. And you see, this is where this clash of personal and maybe it's back to our gut feeling rather than our mind, where Alice might actually feel and be confident that she can remain impartial and objective in making a decision regarding the cleaning contract. And however a reasonable person might consider that Alice would in fact be influenced by her association with Daniel and you'll probably say her loyalty to her daughter and the, if you like, the personal repercussions that could happen in a familial setting had it been identified that Alice had the power to reward the contract to Daniel's father and she didn't. So it's not always about, you know, that kind of giving it, you know, within the family unit there can be fallout. So fallout within her employer and also fallout as a professional and personal level. So Alice should then discuss this with the operations director. And again, part of the process within the organization is that there could be steps taken to mitigate the risk that Alice would in any way be, conflicted and that there would in any way jeopardise the decision making around or morting this contract.

And in the main, it is possibly better that Alice recuse herself completely from the situation and that it is brought forward to another member of the team and perhaps even the director of operations might take this, this particular aspect of the procurement process up themselves. And then ultimately if the cleaning contractor does change and it is no longer Daniel's father's company, then Alice can get back involved in the future tendering etcetera. But at this point in time, the, I suppose, if you like, the best practice steps here is that there's too much personal risk here and for Alice to make an impartial decision and probably better for her professionally and for the company and also personally that she does recuse herself from that situation. Now bear with me, I'll have it now, again, I'm not if you like, this is best practice. And again, in situations like this, there's often a lot of discussions around, you know, whether she should or she shouldn't. And also this is something you'd be very aware of. You can find situations where an individual is adamant that they are not personally conflicted because they want to stay in there, they want to be helpful. Maybe they want to see how the, the cleaning contracts in this case is awarded. And that's where it can get kind of, I suppose, tricky. In a larger organization, there tends to be structures and protocols. In a slightly smaller organization, not so strong maybe. And that's where it can get quite difficult.

And I'm going to then speak to this piece professionally, then that's the, the context of today. But professionally recuse yourself. I just, that's my professional opinion and let each person form their own. I just think it's cleaner and there can be less, if you like, less opportunity for, you know, he said, she said, you know, shoulda, coulda, woulda and all of that. So my second case study then relates to, again, isn't it interesting? Sorry. So it's, it's interesting to me that it involves, yet again, a family member, but this, if you like, there's a kind of a, it's less direct and it's slightly longer, but in the interest of what we're at here today and we're moving along ground with time, I'm just going to kind of probably speedy through this a small bit. So I'm going to move away now from our corporate broking world and I'm actually going to go into the teaching profession so that we'll, we'll change our kind of way of looking at things. So in this particular context, a primary school identifies the need for an educational support officer to assist in the classroom two days a week. The principal's daughter is studying early childhood development and is looking for a part time role. The principal works with the assistant principal to determine the job spec for this new role within the company, including the time commitment and the duties. He does not mention that his daughter could be a potential applicant.

When the role is advertised, his daughter applies and then the principal reports his conflicts of conflict of interest to the leadership team and removes himself from the panel selection. So it moves forward. Cutting to to the chase here, his daughter comes through the process successfully and is identified, excuse me, and is identified as the successful candidate. OK, but it throws up a number of oddities and they are as follows. The word gets word will get out within the school, obviously, that the principal's daughter is now working in a role. He recused himself from the selection process. But that's not going to stop rumour and innuendo that because he was directly involved in the job spec, that he wouldn't have shared the job spec with his daughter, coached her as to how the type of questions that we asked at interview and the type of person that the school was looking for. That's part A, let's say that he didn't do any of that and that his daughter was awarded the role on merit. Do you think and highly competent, capable individual, but do you think her co-workers, all of them will actually believe that once they become aware of the familiar relationship between the principal and this new individual within the organization? So it really wasn't of help to anybody that he was involved in any stage within that process. So that's back to that whole point of, if you remember, one of the definitions is, you know, how would that trust test, how would others judge you? And it is the judgy world that we live in. How would they judge you, you know, on that basis? So again, it's probably another example of, the principle that's, and it really is that conflict, but I think the familiar one can come into it an awful lot.

So Killian, as we move to the next slide, I'll just close out on this by saying that you can move to the next slide. But I think the closing piece with this would be that I don't think that it was in anyone's interest that the principal was involved in any element of this job application procedure. Excuse me. So now to get more, I suppose relevant to what I do on a day-to-day and what you do and the what is the view of the Central Bank of Ireland in relation to conflicts of interest. But the Central Bank of Ireland is certainly not silent on this by any manner of means. The Consumer Protection Code, as its Consumer Protection Code 2012, as I'm going to call it, as it stands, it specifies very clearly that a regulated entity must ensure in all its dealings with customers and within the context of its authorisation that it seeks to avoid conflicts of interest. This is, and I'm not going to delve too deeply into this, but it's the piece here is seeks to avoid in this instance. It doesn't say you have to avoid all conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest can never arise. Conflicts of interest can arise. There is a chapter in the Consumer Protection Code, the 2012 Code, which explains to you the steps you take in the event that a conflict is identified and how you would share it with your client, etcetera, etcetera. Then in 2019, the central bank introduced an addendum to the Consumer Protection Code and it's specified where there were situations where conflicts of interest must be avoided.

Now as we move to the next slide, what I'm calling it the addendum to CPC, you will actually know it better as it was A/C PCPCP Consultation Paper 116, the dreaded CP116 that had us all. Oh gosh, do you know what I would explain this now? It really was a big sea change in the sense that it was this aspect of the addendum to the code that changed the landscape in terms of, you know, engaging and I suppose entertaining your broker clients other than in a de minimis way, etcetera, etcetera. And it also changed the landscape of commissions, Commission payments overrides, you name it. It just was a big, big change within our industry, whether for better or for worse, some of it, certainly you could see the benefit of it. And I'll focus on the facts rather than personal opinion here. So in the addendum, the central bank was saying there are certain situations where, you know, if a conflict is going to arise and you can't just say, oh, I think I might be conflicted here. They were clearly telling us that you must avoid conflicts of interest relating to fees, commissions, other rewards, remuneration linked to targets that do not take into account the customer's best interests. Again, we know that targets linked to override Commission are now a thing of the past. Also, agreements where you're being paid a fee or Commission to direct business to, to direct business in a particular area or to a particular person. And also where you're in receipt of a payment. If you are in receipt of a payment, you must make sure that it does not impair your compliance with your duty of care to the customer to act honestly, professionally and in their best interests.

So if we again move to the next slide. So in an instant like that, you can't write to the customer and say, look, we've identified a conflict of interest with regards to a payment of a fee or Commission. There is no seeking to avoid, you must avoid any set of circumstances where you are conflicted in, in that manner. And interestingly if you reflect back on, and I've shared this with you before, inspections we've had this central bank has conducted, it relates to you know disclosure, Commission payments, customers understanding of saying, you know, the central bank is very keen to gather as much information on this particular topic as they can. Second part then is the central bank again is bringing this particular piece forward very strongly in the new consultation on the consumer protection code. That consultation paper is CP158 and it certainly hasn't been, it has been getting as much traction. It certainly has been eliciting a lot of interest, discussions, etcetera, a bit of mapping and planning, but nothing like the controversy that went with CP116. So again, just to bear in mind that the consultation process closed in June and we are awaiting your final draft of the new code. Again, direction of travel, we would accept that a significant percentage of what's being rolled out in the consultation paper will be retained in the new code. And again, for anyone here in a compliance function, no harm to familiarize yourself with it as much as you can. And I certainly find nearly every time you read it, you, you see something else.

But what I want to do is stay on my theme here, which is that theme of, conflicts of interest and the central bank within the, that consultation paper, the central bank makes a specific link with the retail investment strategy, which again is another part of that, that world we live in. That is still, there's still no hard and fast decisions on. And actually I digress slightly with this, but I was at a corporate governance and a regulatory and all this conference myself there about 3 weeks ago. And as CEO of an international organization was asked a question about regulation and their answer was we do not fear regulation. We fear the uncertainty that's sometimes there as regulations go through the motions, there's uncertainty. And then even when a regulation is passed, it can be a bit vague and there's more uncertainty. So I thought that was was quite good that that it's, we don't fear regulation. It's just here, we'll get on with it. It's the uncertainty piece that can be quite bothersome.

So again, just to stay back on point here, the one of the key measures, and again I'm, I'm taking this directly from the consultation paper, not specifically. My own view is that that the proposed measures in the retail investment strategy include the modernisation of disclosure rules and they, they talk about value for money proposals and they speak about potentially addressing conflicts of interest, created by inducements through prohibiting certain inducements and strengthening conditions where they're allowed. Now we know this of old, that inducement word is the word they use for commissions. Again, your representative body are out in front of this, vehemently opposing the fact that, you know, it could preclude customers from accessing financial services if there is a prohibition on, Commission payments, particularly in the context of investment products. And how are you going to bring a greater proportion of society into that realm of investment if there is a barrier put up in front of it in the context of a fee, potentially. So the central bank again has said that we, the central bank will monitor the evolution of the retail investment strategy proposals and consider if any code changes are required for sectors that will will not be in scope of the retail investment strategy requirements. So that's a bit that's one that I'd be watching. So what they're saying is, you know, at one level there will be an application. Let's for argument's sake, say, and this don't this, I'm not this is, this is hypothetically speaking, hard line. It applies to Miffitt, the central bank, Miffitt firms rather central bank could still come in and make it that it applies to investment/ insurance intermediaries. Also, again, as you well aware, are well aware, as we move to the next slide, just watch this space on it. But I just, that was a bit of a cautionary piece for me that even if the code gets finalised, we could still see ourselves with another addendum. So not to say when the code is finalised to go well, you know, few that's not there. Just I think it's going to be a much more dynamic code than we've seen previously. And certainly that is what the central bank is sharing with us.

I was trying to look then this is kind of nearly the Part 2 of the piece I was trying to look for. So that's all the theory, they're all the case studies. But you know, give us some practical advice. You know, what can we do within our, our business, our brokerages today, if we don't have a conflicts of interest procedure just just to do something, what can we do? Should we do? So I looked to many organisations but actually I thought the one probably of most relevance here is the Financial Services and Pension Ombudsman. So on their website they actually have stated their policy with regards to conflicts of interest and what happens within the Financial Services and Pension Ombudsman and this is literally quoted directly from it. They say we expect and encourage our staff to tell us as soon as they become of any aware of any circumstances that could give rise or be seen to give rise to a conflict of interest on a complaint they're trying to resolve. So it's, it's there. It's just, it couldn't be any simpler. And what I got from this is sometimes you just need to talk it through with somebody else. Don't internalise all of this. So and look at the open brackets piece that they're trying to resolve whether or not the potential conflict has been raised by the parties to the complaint. So what they're trying to get to the bottom of there is what can we do about this? And remember where I started with my wonky slide with the gap, this gut feeling, the reason I'm even as I was an employee in the FSPO look, the reason I'm bringing this forward to have a chat, but he's like, my gut is telling me that I might be even though maybe I'm I'm three steps away from this complaint. Are the people involved. I just feel so so therefore, we're we're stepping away from the academic and we're looking at that gut feeling. And there is this is easily resolved. The complaint is passed to somebody else to investigate and adjudicate on.

Then if I go to the next slide, again, the FSPO shares another way that another examples of where one might be conflicted. So give me a more specific example. So why would I be conflicted? So it would be that you know the person who is making the complaint, you know the person they're making the complaint against. You discovered that the particular complaint involves a job where actually I was involved in in a previous life. Or maybe again, let's go back to our shares in the business piece or you know, somebody senior in that organization. I, I have a personal relationship with it. It really comes down to you need to step back sometimes and think about things. And again then we bring in that last piece about the close personal relationship. So when I was researching this, it brought back to mind a set of circumstances that I came found myself in earlier this year and I hadn't actually connected it in my head because I went with what I felt at the time. But actually academically it kind of fits in here. So I was doing a client, a new business client file review as is part of of the work I do on a regular basis. And it it might sound weird, but the names don't really mean much to me at all in the sense that because for data protection reasons, I never record the names. I'll give them a lettering and a code and that's the way we work, etcetera. So the names don't resonate, but I was looking through the fact find information on a particular couple and you can't have obviously you're going to see location and you're going to see a bit. And then something somewhere in me, I kind of went, Oh God, Oh my God, I know these people, I know these people. And then I just had a quick flick of the name and I went, Oh God, OK, Oh, what am I going to do here? What am I going to do here? And then I went, no, no, no, these people would not want me to know this about them. Yes, I know lots about them, but no, they would not want me to know this about them. And you could say you could detach. I wasn't conflicted. This was an oddest. You could do all those things up in the air. But I actually went with no close the file and I then said, OK, sorry about this. Now I need another file. I know the people. And then we did a very interesting chat about what would that not make the audit easier, better? And I'm like, no, actually, no, I have to go with I feel personally conflicted here. So there's a weird kind of maybe less about the professional and more about the personal. But look, the, the, the kind of the thrust of this isn't supposed to be about me, but you see, it can, it can just happen. And I suppose you just need to have an awareness around you.

So if we move again, then to the next slide, please. So this is back now to bringing my full circle, our ethics piece into the equation. So Please remember way back when Mr. MacDonald was saying, you know, that Oh my God, the ethical solutions, these situations and the ethical responses are so straightforward. And here we are, you know, 10 slides later, still talking about it. So this is what my man from the University of British Columbia said, the ethical response to a situation where a conflict of interest perceived apparent, real that this is what you do. You, if you don't haven't, don't haven't picked up on this already. You reveal your private interests in the matter to the relevant parties. You let others know what might be influencing your judgement so they can be on their guard and not caught on the unawares situation might be that they'll say, well, look, thank you for bringing that to our attention. We feel your contribution will actually still be very valuable. So look, come to the meeting. But at some point in the meeting, that person that you've shared your potential conflict may go. Actually, Evelyn, you know what, we're going to ask you to recuse yourself, you know, bum, and it's no big deal. Best way to do things. And this is another one. It's like, you know, we can all we it's much easier to solve somebody else's problems and actually look at your own and have a have a cracker trying to solve them. Same with this. It may often be a lot easier to recognize when others are in conflict than when you are, you know, you say, oh, they shouldn't do that. They shouldn't. And then, you know, you shine the light on yourself. And this is because sometimes, and it's not an it's not a how to it is, I'm not judging anybody. It is actually just human nature. This is because private and personal interests can sound a person's objectivity. Oh, no, no, I'll be fine. No, no, no, no either. No, honestly, we can't help ourselves. You're, you know, think of Alice and Daniel and her daughter and oh God, and they, Oh no, you just, you get your objectivity just goes out the window. And absolutely, we're all human beings. I could see myself in those kind of conflicty situations as well. But it's like that piece around ethics, you know, that moral compass, you just go with God Almighty, just do the right thing here. And actually, as they say, then you feel better about yourself. So and ultimately, and it's this particular professor was very strong on this, on the absenting yourself. Don't don't even half think it just absent yourself from the situation. And then it's cleaner for everybody hopping along then to the next slide, please.

Is that the end of it? No, I'll see. Yeah, we'll go to the next slide. Oh, yes, there's a little bit about whistleblowers here. Sorry. You can go to the next slide anyway, Killian, But it's all about when you are conflicted that sometimes it can be actually quite difficult where you're conflicted with loyalty to an employer and the public interest that that can sometimes be quite a difficult place to find yourself. And This is why we have whistleblower legislation and I'm linking that. The reason I'm kind of jumping it forward is I do have my whistleblower section, just there towards the end and that piece of our protected disclosures with the central bank. This is, this is not a deep dive into the conduct standard, but again, I'm linking this, yes, we have a compulsory ethics hour linking it now to conflicts of interest and then linking it again to the regulatory framework within which we all operate. I would have spoken about this, the conduct standards in the ethics presentation last year and I would have spoken, spoken rather in detail with in the context of the common conduct standards, the additional conduct standards, business conduct standards less so because they will come into force in line with new CPC. And again, all regulated entities are governed by these common conduct standards. So don't think because you're not in scope for Sears onto the individual accountability framework that you're not in scope here or your employees are not in scope. Everyone is in scope, individuals who design product etcetera, etcetera. It's kind of what I call it all company and all-encompassing set of standards.

So if we just pop into the next slide, please, I'm focusing on the common conduct standards. Now there is overlap between the additional conduct standards, etcetera. But for the purposes of this particular session, I just want to focus on the link with our ethics piece and our conflicts of interest piece. The Central Bank has published significant guidance in the context of each of the conduct standards this piece around acting honestly, ethically and with integrity. There are there are a good couple of pages on it and I would say that they're helpful because it it again helpful in in making you think. So the, the way the central bank starts this piece is they look to integrity first and they say that integrity is fundamental to all aspects of business. And it may be described as behaving, I'm sorry, and may be described as behaving ethically by doing the right thing through your words, actions and beliefs. And that's that piece. But when no one is watching, which I've already said just doesn't sit easily with me. And then individuals acting with integrity in the performance of their role or their function in a firm may take a number of forms of forms, including that that individual is trustworthy. So we're back if we're linking it to the trust test. So the individual is trustworthy, and reliable and that they practice and encourage open and honest communication and that they also follow through on their actions. So that would be a very important piece where you have a, a senior role within an organization that this is the type of behaviour you bring to your role. And that would also mean that in the trust test we spoke about earlier that it would be expected that if you found yourself in any way conflicted that you would, as they say, recuse yourself and bring your potential conflict forward. It's all wrapped up in this common conduct standard.

And again, if we look to the next slide, I have another piece in on the same vein, but just showing you how deeply the central Bank have gone into this in terms of definitions. And again, bringing in my conflicts of interest to peace. Central Bank is saying to us in the guidance that individuals should strictly adhere to company policies in relation in respect rather of conflicts of interest. So again, if you don't have a conflicts of interest policy, no matter so size, nature, complexity is of relevance. But no matter how large or small you, you are obligated to have a conflicts of interest procedure and included in it would be means of preventing identifying, reporting up context of interest as they arise. And also I would think that within an organization you should know where to go if you felt you were conflicted. And the example being, let's say you you're your line manager. This is where the conflict of interest potentially lies. There should be an opportunity for you to go to the next tier in management or even to AHR resource to support you in making a decision about your own personal conflict of interest are potentially a professional, conflict of interest. And again, there should be a port that asked on a port, a call where you can go to have that open discussion. And this again, Bill leads to culture where there is an open culture within our organization where there can be discussions and that there is no culture of blame.

And I'm moving moving nicely along to to the next slide, please, Cillian. And look, this really is kind of just repeating what's there. But but really and truly, if you don't have one, make sure you have a written conflicts of interest procedure. Make sure you do a bit of training in relation to conflicts of interest within your organization. There's nothing to say that if you as you do your own maybe ethics training within the business, that you could kind of build conflicts of interest in here too. And quick Google on the Internet will find you a couple of case studies that you could use potentially in training with your own teams.

So I'll hop now to the, the nut. I'll hop it's Killian. We'll change slides for me, please. And you can change again because I'm coming into this piece that I kind of like to share with you. So we have a lot of, ER, whistleblower legislation, kind of what we call protected disclosure legislation. And I always caveat this by saying my specialist area, Central Bank of Ireland legislation, regulation, etcetera. This kind of straddles 2 spheres, if you like it's, it's and I'm not going to dig deep into each particular section of the legislation. I just want to share with you the options that are there, for regulated entities and individuals within the, the regulated world to make protected disclosures. And I was involved this year for the first time with an organization where it was determined that it was appropriate that a protected disclosure was made to the central bank in the context of a matter. So it's interesting when you, I suppose when you see the circumstances that that can arise and to see then one will never know where it goes after that. But it's important to know that there are avenues within which it is appropriate to make a protective disclosure to the central bank. And let me just read the definition that the Central bank share with us and it is that you can make so so like probably read it properly that where a worker makes a disclosure under the Protect Disclosures Act, which they believe is substantially true or a person in good faith makes a disclosure under this Central Bank Act. Because again, you have to know the difference between the two to the Central Bank of Ireland or one of its employees or one of its authorised officers. And they have reasonable grounds for believing that the disclosure will show that there has been, is being or as likely to be a breach or offence under the financial services legislation. Concealment, destruction, da, da, da, da, da. They're making this disclosure for the purposes under the for the purposes of the legislation.

So if I go to the next slide, I know I've kind of skimmed over that, but in fairness, you can all read it at your leisure. And this particular section that I share with you here is taken from the central bank website. Again, if you go into the search segment of the central bank, it, there's quite a, quite a significant amount of information on it. What I want to get across here is that workers can submit anonymous disclosure to the Central Bank of Ireland and such a disclosure is treated as a protected disclosure under the act. And then the other section in bold is that the central bank will not inform A regulated financial services firm that a disclosure has been named. And it's all about protecting the individual's identity.

So if we go to the next slide, and I'm moving towards the concluding of, of this particular presentation now and happy to go Q&A if that is appropriate. Now if I was going to do the all, you know, keep you in suspense, but it's not that kind of lecture, I would have held back the figures in 2023. Every year, year on year, we saw an increase in the the protected disclosures and there was a kind of a hiatus if you like, as I would have perceived it in 2020, given that we were in a pandemic, right. So in 2019, there were 200 protected disclosures made to the central bank and they report it's in the calendar year now and the report comes is available to us in June. So you can see there was kind of momentum in the direction of those protected disclosures increasing. And I actually will say that I couldn't believe that there was a reduction in the level of protected disclosures in 2023. But actually if I take away kind of what I call a curious emotional response probably to this and look at the facts, let's let's go optimistic and say, well, actually is that because there has been less reason for individuals to make protected disclosures to the central bank with regards to perceived breaches in the regulation, actual breaches, etcetera, etcetera. So that's if we go back to our weighing scales, that's that's, that's the good one. So there have been less, less reason to make those reports. Or do we have apathy coming into the system? Or are individuals not aware that there are options open to them? And I know on previous Central Bank of Ireland Rd. shows where they have come to the intermediary sector, one of the officers of that department has shared the process and how to make a protected disclosure with our sector. And there are Rd. shows in November. It'll be interesting to see if they bring it forward again based on these statistics. But rest assured, and this is my, as they say, my, my last sound bite. Rest assured, the Central bank, as it pains to state yet again that the information they received from the apologies in their report, they've changed the way they report and some reports carry over into another year. So there's actually, if you want to go and have a look at the report, there's actually quite a lot of information in it about the activity that they do undertake. So actually I think the 224 kind of belittles the work that goes on in the background. There's a lot going on. There are some of the complaints of the protected disclosures from previous years are still being investigated. I very important point to note, but rest assured the central banker paints to state in that report that information they receive as a protected disclosure does lead to enhanced supervision of firms, risk mitigation programs with firms. They're kind of per firms have been inspected, matters have arisen that haven't yet warranted, you know, going into that kind of administrative sanctions procedure. They'll allow the firm work, they'll work with the firm to mitigate risks that were identified in the course of their inspection, warning notices, etcetera and enforcement action. So as I say, interesting read if that's the particular role you have in your organization. And then it'll be interesting to see what the Central Bank bring forward at their roadshows at the end of November.

And unless I am mistaken, that concludes my part of the presentation. And to say thank you very much to everybody for your attendance this morning. Appreciating it is a very busy time of year. And I'll hand you back to Alan now.

Thanks, Evelyn, You're very good. Evelyn. I am. There is one or two questions particularly in relation to Alice, if you don't mind and Alice's situation and it's it's not so much about the tender process. So there's a question here that presumes, and you can correct it wrong, that if Alice recuses herself from the tender process, but then the incumbent. Firm. Retains the contract, presuming that there's no issue with Alice managing your relationship going forward, is that. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. So it's it's really about the tender process. But after the tender has been won or sorry renewed, she she can obviously managers as as as sorry as how she feels sees fish. Yeah. Brilliant. Yes, great question. Thank you. The the other one is in relation to the absent yourself from decision making. And I don't want to go into a a rabbit hole on this, but there's a question about giving advice to a family or family member or a friend. How do you manage that? Oh, But there's Jonas. This, this audience is really good. They're really, really good. This you see, this is something that again, you know, you could have three more slides on that would have come up in the research as well. Every single aspect of the research says you should not advise a family member. Now I have again been asked and I have seen those situations. I think you're better off to if it's a bit like this would have happened to me of old. You're going to be asked anyway in a private capacity. So perhaps in a broker advisor situation, yes, be there, but have somebody else from your organization with you as well. Have another advisor. It's it just gets very complicated. It gets very personal. Oh my God, families have fallen out over over less. It is, it's and you know what, Alan, I would actually think that that's nearly where every organization advisor will have to nearly inherently look at that themselves. And also, yeah, look, it is, it is one of those where I do think it would be worth within a business thrashing it through with somebody else, you know, if they're challenged. Are you, are you really impartial? You know, so again, great question. But the the ability to do black and white because it can be a set of familial circumstances. I think I've mentioned this before on this on this particular channel, but in general insurance, it's much clearer you do not progress a policy for a family member. I absolutely appreciate because of the complexity of what why say we and those why say we, those of us here on this particular session do That's not as straightforward, but the question has been asked. I think it would be good to have a a cup of coffee and a good robust chat with somebody around that within your organization.

OK. So, so really it's it's about showing that you've gone through a process to ensure that biases are minimized. That'll be fair. Yeah. You see this is the difficulty as well. And you see, it's showing you went through a process like you, you don't not just for the sake of the box tick. You know, it's, it would be, you know, like have the discussion where somebody goes, no, no, you are conflicted. You know, you know, you can't, you, you're going to be paid a Commission if this person does the business. I just, there's a lot has to go out on the table and to be discussed. And again, it might be appropriate to include the family member in the discussion because that if you go back to the consumer protection Code and conflicts of interest, that chapter that's there, you know, it does speak about bringing that potential conflict of interest to the client's attention. And the client then will say, no, I'm happy to have, you know, Evelyn, my sister advising me on my policy. So go back to the consumer protection Code and just have a read of that as well.

OK, Evelyn, as as always, thank you so much for for bringing this area to to life via case studies and practical examples. To our advisors who are on the the webinar this morning, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Quick reminder that there are two more webinars left in our winter series than their registration is available on the website. Evelyn, thank you for joining us. Advisors, thank you so much as well and look forward to seeing you again soon. Take Care now. Bye bye. Bye everybody. Thank you.
 

Introduction:

Good morning, everybody and welcome to our retirement proposition Update.
Thanks a million for taking taking the time.
My name is Darren McGarry.
For those who I haven't met, I'm one of the regional sales managers here at Standard Life and here my colleague Sinead McAvoy, I think you may all know is Head of our Retirement Solutions.
Really want to thank you all.
Firstly, kicking off in terms of year to date, it's been an incredible year for Standard Life.
Again, we don't take it lightly and we know how important working with our advisor partners are.
And just to set some context, the importance of that is allowing my with the likes of myself and Sinead to be able to talk to you here this morning with some really, really exciting developments as we move forward into what's at first the busiest time of the year and into 2025.
In terms of also moving forward, this is the first of three webinars that we're going to be running as we move into the winter months.
The next will be on the 24th of October.
It'll be a pay and file deadline with Chenane and our colleague Janice Neville.
And we'll also be running another session on the 7th of November around ethics with Evelyn Hamran.
You can actually register now on the on the bottom of the screen there if you want to.
But we'll also be sending out easings in advance back to today and just trying to set some scene in terms of where we're going.
And as I mentioned, we really are in that growth phase.
It's a very exciting time for Standard Life and we don't take it lightly and we know the supports help us build where we're going.
That said, and I have to be very careless was where I go with this because I I can be easily excited.
But when it comes to pensions, as can Sinead.
But I think there's a lot of positivity.
I think you can see within the profession at the moment, there's a lot of media talk about pensions.
Simplicity has been brought out and I think it can be only a good thing for our profession.
Sinead, you might enlighten us a little bit in terms of some of the exciting things that we're starting to hear and see in the media.
Sinead McAvoy:

Yeah, absolutely, Darren.
Yeah, as you said, it's a, it's a very exciting, it's, it's probably a, a strong term in the world of pensions, but we believe it is, we've never seen and I've never seen pensions in the media as much.
And they've, they've really been brought to the fore, you know, auto enrolment, we've been given a start date of next September and also the increase in the SFT standard fund threshold which has been talked about for quite some time.
Pensions it, it, it's very clear they're being supported and encouraged and encouraged by the government and there's never been such a focus on them.
And they really are now kind of in a positive light.
And it's such like, like it's such a good place for the industry because for years it was dogged with charges and just, they were kind of more deemed kind of negative or we must do it.
Whereas now they're being brought before people are now sitting up interested, listening, auto enrolment, if they have a pension scheme, they're kind of going, maybe let's take a look at it.
Let's see where I'm at and kind of thinking about that retired life.
Because when the government is talking about it, they're making people sit up and listen.
But the first item that I'm kind of going to chat through today is, I suppose we're all very familiar with the SFT.
It's been chatted about for quite some time.
It hasn't changed since 2014.
It had been substantially higher.
It had been 5 million.
It was even at 5 point, it was actually unlimited up until 2005.
Then it came down to to five million, 2.3 million and then it was reduced again in 2014 to 2 million and it hasn't changed since.
Obviously wage growth has increased substantially between 2014 and 2024, circuit 30% and now the government has kind of like about a year ago, the government launched a review of the SFT regime and only a few weeks ago Jack Chambers kind of announced the publication of this independent report, which was led by an expert doctor Donald Butler.
This was obviously very welcomed and Jack Chambers has taken some of the recommendations and accepted them, which is great and I'll go through some of them.
And then there were other recommendations in the report that he was had referred to an Inter agency for further review.
But I'll start and chat about some of the recommendations that we know are going to happen and we will see these changes hopefully either in the Finance Bill this year, which should be published either today or over the next few days or next year.
So the standard fund threshold is, as we know, it's 2 million at the moment and it is set to increase by €200,000 annually from 2026 to 2029.
So we'll see it increase then in 2029.
Maximum increase, maximum fund of 2.8 million from 2030 onwards.
It is going to increase in line with wages growth.
So that's a really good thing.
That's a really positive thing that once we see it by increased to in 2029, it's going to continue to increase alignment wages growth.
So that's a really positive thing.
But the, the, the way it looks like it's going to happen.
So straight off when we saw that being published a few weeks ago, anyone who had, you know, funded for two million straight away we're thinking, OK, can I, does that mean in 2029 I'll be able to fund that gap of 800,000 and get to 2.8 million? Will actually that it doesn't look like that's the case because the value of benefits already retired.
When I talk about retired, I talk about crystallized lumpsum taken.
And they must, the way the taxes Act is written, they must also increase by the same percentage as the SFT.
So I, I was trying to just explain it in kind of the simplest way I could, you know, the way we like to do it here in Ireland, we like complication and this the government back in 2018 were talking about, you know, simplifying the landscape.
This hasn't done that.
But let's see what the Finance Bill contains.
But this is what it looks like.
This is what it looks like it will play out.
So here is just a quick example.
So as we know, the SFT limit at the moment is 2 million and for an individual who has retired.
So that's crystallized 1,000,000 of pension benefits.
It means they have used up 50% of the SFT threshold.
So if they retired more benefits in 2025, they would have 1,000,000 available to the monthly of the SFT because they have used 50% of us the.
So that means then that in 2026 they would have 50% of that available to them as well.
So that means that if they didn't do anything by 2026, they would have one point 1,000,000 available to them.
If they decided to do nothing in 2026, in 2027, we know that the SFT will increase to 2.4 million million and they will have 50% of that threshold available to them.
If they do nothing until 2027, they will have 50% of the 2027 threshold, which is 2.6 million, which means they would have 1.3 million available to them.
And if they do nothing until 2020, 2826 and seven, sorry, 2028 and 29, sorry, there's a typo there.
They do nothing until 2029 and they will have 50% of that revised threshold, which we know will be 2.8 million.
So they would have 1.4 million available to them.
And so and for anyone who hasn't crystallized any of their benefits, if they do nothing until 2029, they will have 2.8 million available to them.
And so as I said earlier, where the client has already matured the 2 million, they it looks like they won't be able to benefit from this increase.
Darren McGarry:

So Sinead, really interesting, I think he touched on something there.
It's kind of an Irish way to come up with a solution in terms of there's still a bit of complexity there.
It screams get advice, I think is what this says all day long.
But it is a good thing for the profession, I think it has to be.
Sinead McAvoy:

Yeah, it's, it's really positive and it's just kind of showing that the government like understands and is encouraging the need for people to make provision for their retired lives.
As we know, retired lives are so much different now and people are living longer.
They may be paying, you know, rent into retirement, mortgages into retirement.
They need more than just to stay so and the other proposed changes which Jack Chambers did accept were that both elements of the pension lump sum was to remain.
So the way the legislation was written was that the lump sum was 25% of the of the SFT. As we know the SFT was 2 million. So typically if the SFT was increasing the lump sum, then would increase it, it would be 25% in the USFT. But what they they're proposing is they remove that and put set lump some amounts. So you'll only be able to take 2 up to 200,000 tax free. And then if you are able to take more as a pension lump sum 300,000 then can be paid out in a lump sum, but it's subject to 20% tax. So there's no change to the pension lump sum allowances. The chargeable excess tax is to remain unchanged. As we know it's at 40% and it will be reviewed in 2030. And there was suggestions that it could result in a rate as low as 10%. But let's see what happens. And then factoring factors that are valuing DB schemes are greatly reduced. This is only for DB scheme pension benefits that are pensions that are accrued post the first first the first of the 1st 2014. Any pension defined benefit pension accrued up to the first of the 1st 2014 is valued at 20 to one. That's not going to change. It is more benefits that are accrued post 1st 1st 2014 they they were valued the much higher. So for example if you are aged 60 and any benefit accrued post the 1st, the 1st 2014 was valued at 26 to 1 and that is going to be reduced substantially down to 21. So that just means that anyone who has ADV scheme don't do anything, wait until these revised factors are in place because your actual like I suppose the DB scheme where you're kind of at that chargeable excess territory don't do anything because actually that DB benefit will be greatly reduced. I'm sorry, it won't be reduced. The value out will be reduced, but your DB benefit will be exactly the same. Exactly. It makes some sense. Sorry, yeah, no. And that's good, but but it's only for define benefit schemes. But just again, going back to what we said, Jeanette, it screams seek advice. Yes, yes, and, and define benefits and how you value them, capitalisation factors. They're not straightforward, but yeah, a good financial planner, good financial advisor will be very clear on these. And if not, they can always contact us.

Other Recommendations:

And there was other recommendations as well. The first was remove and these are ones that Jack Chambers didn't accept, but he has recommended that they are referred to an interagency for further review.
It's the removing of the age-related annual limits for personal contributions and removing the 115,000 earning limits.
They are the age-related limits that we're all very familiar with for personal contributions.
I don't see that happening. But what I liked in that document was the way he said that or that, sorry, the report suggested that why have those age-related limits and the maximum 115 salary earnings limit when actually there is an overall threshold in phase of which we know is the SFT.
So and and that makes complete sense. There is a limit on pension funds by staff people or by restrict people getting there at different stages.
So I don't see it happening, but it's still good that they are recommending it to be reviewed.
Chargeable excess tax liabilities for all pensions to be spread and paid over a 20 year. This is allowed, but it's only for DB schemes in the civil service.
What they're suggesting is that maybe that should be looked at for all defined benefit schemes and and defined contribution schemes, although I'm not so sure how that would happen for a defined contribution scheme.
And then provide a one time encashment option where funds are in excess of this standard fund threshold.
And this is already in place for individuals to with civil servants. You see it it's it's the hospital consultants, high hospital consultants, High Court judges who are have no choice but to accrue civil service pension benefits.
And they may have already accrued private pension benefits before joining the civil service.
And what it is allowing is those individuals whose private pension benefits bring them over the SFT, they can get, they have a one off opportunity to literally in cash those private pension benefits they get, they're taxed.
So essentially they're giving back the tax relief they got in the 1st place.
And then those pensions fall out of the whole pension system and they're not tested against the SFT.
Those are already in place for public servants with dual private and pension, private benefits and pension benefits.
So it's just a recommendation that it actually should be allowed for all pension, all, all pensions.
So it's just making them more equitable so that they make sense.
So there there's a lot, there's a lot in that. We won't, as I said, we won't see this page or this these recommendations if they're even ever taken on board. We, we won't see this happen for quite some time.
But the earlier ones, the SFT, we will see happening in either the pensions bill this year or not, or if not, next year.
Darren McGarry:

Sorry, Sinead, I should have said at the start there is AQ and a function folks that's on the right hand side. So we will come to questions at the end. So any questions fire them in.
Interestingly, Sinead, we talked about, you know the idea that I talked about some exciting developments we have moving into the end of the year and into 2025. We're predominantly seeing within the the advisor market that cure OPS is kind of an area of specialty where we are with some exciting developments in that space as well.
Sinead McAvoy:

Yeah, absolutely. As you guys will probably be familiar with, we already have our bio bond registered as a cure OPS product and we have now registered our PRSA. Given that it is now a whole of life product since last year, it's probably just a much more suitable product or transfer vehicle for the Cure OPS and we have now launched it, it's last week or the week before.
So it is now available Cure Apps Pure SA and it accepts transfers from the UK scheme without the potential for triggering UK tax charge.
Cure Apps has been around for quite some time. It's been around since April 2006 and there there has been lots and lots of legislative changes from HMRC since then.
I guess it was kind of very loose legislation and they really just have tightened it up. There was a lot of abuse of the rules and what they're really doing is kind of returning the cure OPS to what it was originally intended to do and that was for individuals who were leaving the UK or retiring outside of the UK.
It was allowing them to bring their pension benefits with them and and actually the lifetime allowance. I suppose this is just more from UK perspective. The lifetime allowance, which is the standard fund threshold here in Ireland was 1,073,000. In the UK that was abolished.
So you can now accrue pension unlimited pension funds in the UK. But that then there is now what they have done since in only in 2024 they have introduced the HMRC, an overseas transfer allowance and that is back to 1,073,000.
And what that means is that anyone who is accrued Korean pension, who has accrued pension benefits in the UK and wants to bring it over to Ture OPS, you can bring over 1,073,000 in gross format. Anything over that is subject to 20 25% tax charge and that that's the way it already it already that's the way it originally was when they had that lifetime limit in place.
Then they removed the lifetime limit, but now they have brought it back just so for overseas transfer allowance.
So if you have a client who has three million, 3 million in the UK, they can retire those benefits in the UK and they will never incur any sort of chargeable excess tax or overseas transfer allowance.
However, if they transfer it over to a Cure OPS 1,073,000 can go in gross format. However, anything over that amount to Cure OPS is subject to a 25% tax charge.
And I suppose I I just thought it was interesting to kind of give you a picture of the cure OPS market generally. And I don't have transfers to Ireland, but HMRC do publish the amount of transfers that go to Cure UPS each year.
So there's about typically over the last number of years there's around 3000 transfers to Cure UPS and it's worth about 500 to £700 million.
There was a spike in 2023-2024 and that was to do with the lifetime allowance being abolished and it went up to 1.14 billion.
But now since the swift reduction, introduction of that overseas transfer allowance, we'll see that come back to around 500 to 700 million.
And it is a niche area. And as Darren mentioned, there's only a few of us doing it. And now we have our synergy. Say alongside our Bob registered with HMRC, which can accept the proceeds.
So I suppose what is the real difference with you might say, like what difference does it make whether it goes into a biofont or cure OPS? Well, actually the key here is the, the fact that it's whole of life and you can retire, you can invest your PRSA and it stays within the cure OPS struct structure.
But I suppose the pension age, the earliest age. So that's still the same. The earliest age is 55. However, kind of Irish PRSA rules kind of take over here as well.
So you can take your benefits from Cure OPS PRSA from age 55, but you have to be fully retired from all employments and that's pure say rules.
So you can still retire at 55 but you have to be fully retired from all employments and that's pure say rules. So you can still retire at 55, but you have to have you, you have to be fully retired. Whereas in under the cure apps, Bob, you just have to let the employment which relates to and obviously if it's in the UK, you will have left it. The UK tax rules. And this is obviously the one where we're all concerned about. Once the PRSA is set up, benefits then can be retired immediately within, within the QRSA. So we don't have to be out of the UK one year, 2 year or sorry, 10 years. You, you can have left the UK last year and you are now an Irish tax resident. And say for example, you are 58, you are fully retired, you can access, you can retire your pension benefits in under the QRSA, you can take a lump sum, but it has to remain vested within the PRSA. As we know the best of PRSA is exactly the same as in ours. So clients can do exactly so clients can access benefits almost immediately within that Europe's PRSA structure. And that was something that we were always getting asked questions on. An individual who had there were 6566 had worked in the UK for years, had just literally retired, they had moved back to Ireland, fully intend to retire in Ireland and they transferred over to a cure OPS Bob and they couldn't well, and, and the, the problem with that was they weren't out of the in under the cure OPS Bob. They weren't out of the UK 10 years. And then by transferring into a cure OPS Bob, we were nearly forcing them to extend their retirement age to 75. But actually in under the cure OPS Bob, in theory, you should have retired at 70. So it, it, it just didn't work. So this cure OPS here is a is a much simpler, straightforward solution. And I think, you know, it should work really well for that type of client.

Overseas Transfer Charge:

And then there is an overseas transfer charge. So the overseas transfer charge will continue to apply to cure OPS for up to five years. We don't envisage that of applying. And the reason we don't see that is because once the fund, once the individual and the cure OPS are in the one country, you will never be subject to that. Or if the individual remains within the EEA European Economic Area, you'll never be subject to that either. So we don't envisage that happening at all.
Buyout Bond vs PRSA:

And here is just the, uh, difference between, uh, the buyout bond versus the PSA from Europe perspective. So as I mentioned, the PSA the whole of life, no need to set up an arc. You can just vest the PSA. So it's much more straightforward, but we were seeing, you know, individuals transferring it into the cure OP swab and then retiring it straight away. It would have to go through the claims process back to your business to set up an arc, whereas you can just straight away set up the cure OPS PRSA and vest it and that's it. So we just go into claims, vest it. It's much simpler. The residency rule doesn't apply, but you have to be keeping your benefits within the curiosity PRSA structure. That's key. It can accept transfers up to age 75, whereas in the bio bond we could only accept transfers up to age 70. And then you can access from age 60 unless you're fully retired from age 55. You can then in that instance and it is a much simpler, straightforward and that's what we talk about at the USA. It's just in keep it simple. Yeah, and it's simpler to explain to a client. Here you go. You can transfer it into this vehicle and then once we get it in, you can take your lump sum and then just leave the remaining from there. It's just a much simpler solution. The Bob as we know you need to retire it, you need to transfer it into an R for immunity and that's where you have to be out of the UK for 10 years and you can accept transfers up to age 70 only. So we, we do get a lot of questions or out of a client who's age 17, who's 73 UK pension can be transferred back. You couldn't previously, you can now. And whereas the Bob, you can access it from age 55 once you've left the service to which it relates to, which is obviously the case because you have left the UK. So yeah, there's no doubt that Cure OPS is quite technical. There is a lot to it. But I suppose what we're saying is the peer essay is now available. You can set one up straight away if if that's what you want to do. But if you have any questions, ask your business manager or come to the technical team directly. There's me, there's Janice and there's Pat. And we would be more than happy to answer any of your questions.
Darren McGarry:

Actually, I think that's, I think you've, you've nailed it and won that. I think we're, we're definitely seeing it as experts in that field, but I think there are some difficult questions there. And the obvious question would be in terms of should I pure SA or should I, Bob, I think each case on it has its individual merit. Speak to your business manager or come to a technical team. I think that's the the guideline.
PRSA Offering:

So again folks, I'm going to fly through some of the the evolution for want of a better word in terms of our pure SA offering. And I think given the seismic shift we've seen in the last 1824 months towards the PRSA. And I think we've been very vocal and for advisors working with us as a, as a distribution team that we we truly do believe that the PRSA is the vehicle of choice and a retail solution for retail clients. And we're starting to use a tagline of a single relationship solution for one member arrangements. We felt there was an opportunity, given what was going on in the marketplace, to, for want of a better word, put our own offering under the microscope and see how we could evolve even further. On the basis of that, we looked at 3 core pillars. The first is simplicity. I've mentioned it before, and we think it's the foundation for everything. We've been an industry of complexifiers. As the profession evolves, we're trying to make things simple. Part of that is we've developed our online proposition. So now for PRSASAVCS, I'm moving from an executive pension into a PRSA. You now have online capabilities that streamlined end to end I think as well, which has been a big win for us as we've set up our own dedicated PRSA team. And just to share some stats with you up to yesterday, I got an e-mail to say that 95% of the business coming in now is being processed. Once put in clean, it's been processed within SLA of five days. So it kind of gives you an idea in terms of that dedicated house for PRSA is making your life easy because if you can send us in the business, we may play vis via you guys are going to look even better in front of your clients. The other option was choice and that's another foundation we looked at in terms of a range of investments. And the good news is on our peers say our full suite is available through all our range of Vanguard funds, our recent small cap addition, our my folio suite, our ESG, our self-directed and deposits. And I think one of the focus points for today will be around the clear pricing. And I don't take this lightly in the sense that everything we've done, we've done on the back of advisor feedback. So we've spoken to advisors, we've got some content and that's allowed us to shape where we're going moving forward into Q4 and 2025. We also looked at how we, I suppose we have a total customer charge and present how we charge for customers because I think you look at the UK business and consumer duty is becoming quite, you know, challenging over there in terms of transparency. And we looked at our offering to say how can we align our proposition that it's simple that clients can understand what they're paying for their AMC, the ongoing advisor charge and what does that look like as a total charge. And then last but not least, I think and I've spoken to a couple of buyers around this, the payment of Commission around the point of vesting. Sinead touched on this in terms of that whole life contract and we don't take this likely like it. Well, it wouldn't. It's a lot simpler to just vest the PRSA. We can't undermine the importance of that transition period for the advisor and dealing with the client because it's, it's a really important step in the journey. And we're recognising that that warrants a cost to serve, hence why now moving forward, we're paying on any vested Commission.
Charging Structure:

So just what I mentioned there in terms of how we're going to frame our charging structure. Again, this is some of the new marketing material we've brought. We're absolutely open to feedback on this. Please speak to myself, Ryan, the business manager. In terms of your thoughts. We wanted to be clear, flexible and competitive. We've broken down into the management charge, the ongoing charge, the AMC reduction and what that looks like for the customer. In this example, we've used at this the Vanguard Global Index fund on €200,000 and we've brought it down not only on the AMC but we've also put the numerical value. It seems to have landed really well. What if you advise I've spoken with would be really, really keen to get feedback in terms of our pricing options. I'm not going to go through all of this in detail, but it gives you an insight that we've now 16 options there available. What we're saying is that we understand not only our advisor business is different, but clients are different. They have different needs, they have different wants and in some situations you have clients that have a higher cost to serve. We've recognised that and that was one of the reasons we brought some of the new additions. So for today, we're just going to focus on those new options and they're very much focused around the low cost options for clients.

New Structures:

OK. And I want to also just kind of put in context some of the reason as to why we've put these options on the platform. We absolutely have gone and got advisor insight, but I just want to put some shape in terms of why we've gone with these options.
So what our new structures is option in it'll always be 100% allocation in terms of your, your, your transfer, your single premium if you give a .5 AMC reduction with a .75 FB or C. This was targeted at the advisors and planners that were speaking to us to say they have certain clients at a cost to serve that they need to be up at .75 depending on the asset value.
OK. So we haven't just gone along and just, you know, put a finger in the air here. We've got like market research and insight from some of our advisors and keep in mind folks that any of these rebates are only kicking in at 100,000.
Also pricing structure number O or letter O, excuse me again, 100% allocation .5 AMC rebate with no FBRC. Some may feel as a business that is purely focused on financial planning and supporting advisors, why put in a no FBRC option? The reason is actually there's it's twofold. One, we've had a lot of advisers feed into us not only on their own business, but secondly on fee business that they do where they just want to get the cost as low as possible. But also what was really important that came back into feedback is we do have certain advisors that have a certain charging structure that might be 30 basis points or 40 basis points. So in that example, what this will allow them to do is use a multi PRSA strategy in terms of getting that charge. So if you use the example of €1,000,000 and somebody had a 40 basis points charge, they might split their PRSA putting one on this option of 200,000 and putting the 800,000 then on our option M which would give them on average a 40 basis points trail. So there was method in the madness for want of a better word in terms of brain this answer platform and it seems to have landed very well.
And lastly is our structure P. So again very similar to one of our existing structures, but strong feedback came back particularly around high net worth individuals, 100% allocation, .45 AMC rebate. But some advisors were telling us for their high network clients .25 FBRC was high enough on that basis they didn't need the .5 FBRC given the total assets. So this structure seems to have landed very well with them.
Example:

So really, really quickly, how does that look in an example? So I just tried to shape them all the same. Just to kind of give you an idea, we're looking at a client that's 45, NRA 68. Keep in mind folks that on regular premium commissioners calculated up to a cap at 68 for our single premiums and transfers. However, we can go to age 75. We have a regular contribution of 1000 a month with a single contribution payment of 100,000.
So back to transparency and clarity in terms of how that would look. Client, as I mentioned, would get 100% allocation. The regular Commission would be 0. Given the low, low cost and low base single contribution or transfer payment will receive a bonus Commission of 1/2 percent. There will be a rebate of half percent off the AMC with .75 added on in terms of total charge. We've based this on our more popular funds folks in terms of our global index funds, which is our Vanguard portfolios and our My Folio market. Obviously for those who are using the individual Vanguard funds will be 5 base points less. We felt it was probably more prudent to use the more popular fund suite on this. So how would that look? It would look like a 1.2% total charge, the client .75 going to the advisor with any bonus Commission subject to our usual five year claw back gain option O and this is our option I spoke about in terms of no FBRC. So this is our low cost option for potentially fee based business. Client would get 100% allocation. There would be no Commission on any of the regular premium. Given the low cost base, there would be a placement fee and a bonus Commission of 1/2 percent on the transfer payment and the AMC rebate of .5 would kick in. So how would that look? It would look like a .45 AMC for your portfolios or as I mentioned, .4 for our individual Vanguard funds.
And last but not least is option P Again, what that would look like folks, 100% for the client. Regular Commission in this situation would generate us 10%. The transfer payment on the bonus of a single would be 1%. The rebate would kick in at .45 with FDRC of .25 and that would mean a total charge declined to .75. So when you think back in terms of a high level for a higher network clients, there would be a 1% placement fee for the business and in that situation then you have an all in charge of .75 point 25 that going to the advisor again I think for a great addition to the platform and again it's just another evolution in terms of the choice and variety we've brought to finish up.
Annuity Options:

Last but not least, I do want to touch on our annuity options. As many of you are aware, we have been in the annuity market for years, but something that had been lacking was an enhanced annuity calculator and some of the feedback again and the insight we got from advisors was they were having to come to their business manager to get bespoke quotes. Happy to say as of yesterday we officially launched our enhanced annuity calculator that's now online on the advisor site. The great news is Commission will be paid from zero to 3%. It's from amount of 2 1/2 thousand up to 1,000,000. And I think one of the great feedbacks I've got is the guarantee. So the quote will last for 14 days with a further 30 days. And if the application form has had been sent in within the 1st 14 and I think uniquely the purchase as the purchase happens within the 30 days, the rate will actually be the higher of the quote or the rate within the 30 days. So again, back to feedback from advisors. The tool has been inside LED. It is very, very straightforward and you should be able to generate quotes within literally a minute to two minutes maximum.
Q&A Session:

So that's really all. In terms of the update today, Sinead, not sure if any questions have come in or where we're looking. I don't know direct directly myself, or more than likely yourself.
Yeah. No, no, there. There's a few that I, I think we can both answer. So the first one, can clients now access Barclays in under the PSA?
No. Not an option at the moment. It is something so society generally would be the option at a minimum of 250,000. On the PRSA, we still have the HSBC demand account and our Global Liquidity fund. The issue was many are probably aware of Barclays is in terms of the pensions authority are looking as a structured product rather than a fixed term deposit. And and that has been the challenge we've had. But at the moment we still have a society generally about.
And here is one that comes up all the time, the need to ha involve auk pension advisor for cure apps transfers. And this is something advisors are kind of struggling with because there's very few out there and, and some of them are incredibly costly. And we just have seen generally transferring from DB schemes in the UK to a cure apps. It's just not really happening anymore. A lot of them are being referred to a pension agency within the UK. It's, it's a government agency, I think pension matters or something like that. So there's lots of delays. There are red flags, orange flags. It's, it's, it's quite complicated. We're not seeing them. But, but I guess as well, the starting position on the DB scheme is that you're worse off transferring out. So you need to be mindful of that. But there were, we do have a couple of, there's two or three advisors that do provide that specific advice where you're transferring from ADB that and the value is greater than 30,000, but it's typically 1% of the transfer value. So the charges can be incredibly high and then they would probably have a minimum fee on it. It's because it is a big risk to their business and there is a huge focus on the FCA and the UK on these types of transfers. As we know, that's been going on for years. So please do speak to your business manager, whoever's asked the question. We do have some options there, but again, like Sinead said, it's become incredibly challenging.
Yeah. Can a Europe's Bob now be transferred to Europe's peers say?
That's a good question. No, that's where the Irish rules kind of come back in there. Peers say can't, Bob cannot transfer to a peers say unfortunately. So we're not able to to do that.
Which is an interesting one that came up yesterday actually for myself, a vested PRSA in terms of cure ups vested PRSA. If can that come into our structure or is it only PRSA?

No. So it's a pre-retirement? Pre-retirement.
OK, interesting. OK.
And then here's another one, just I thought it was interesting with the best of PRSA, how is drawdown in retirement kind of be taken monthly similar to an ARF?
Yes. OK. So it's exactly, so a best of peer SA is identical to an ARF. So you can do exactly what you can do under the best of peer SA that you can do in an ARF. The only difference is you don't have to transition out and purchase a new product. So it is much more.
And I think Shane, just on that, what has come up actually a lot in the last 12 to 18 months is more queries around clients that are in bio bonds that are aged 70 that don't want to access their benefits and want to stay in because they don't need to access their benefits. And I think that's probably one of the driving reason in terms of why we're seeing the PRSA now, particularly for cure OPS. That's the main reason that people don't need access to it. The extra five years, even from a financial planning point of view, it's great to have, yeah. So that's why another one is at what age can seniors, this is one for me, absolutely. At what age can senior civil servants in cash funds in excess of the SFT. So that was that private, the private public encashment option that is available so they can in cash, the private pension benefits from age 60, but it must be before they retire their public service benefits. So there's a window and it has to be at least six months before the individual retires from the public service.
When will we be factoring the DBS? After July 2014, if the factoring has been reduced. So up until, as I said, up until this is for the DB schemes and the factors that are used to value them, the capitalisation factors. So up until any pension, DB pension accrued up until the 1st, the 1st 2014 is still going to be valued at 20 to one. There was new capitalisation factors for DB pensions accrued after that date. They were, they were proposed. So say for example, if you're aged 60 currently it's 30 to 1 and the suggestion is to bring it down to 21 to 1. And for age 65 at the moment it's 26 to 1. And the suggestion is to bring that down and value it at 19 times to 1. So it is significantly reducing the value of them from an overall SFT perspective. But those figures that were contained in that report that was published very recently have to be independently verified. So let's see what the Finance Bill contains. So we'll know more.
There was probably one more question and then we'll kind of wrap it up. Any reason to use Secure App Spot next? Probably one directed you, but my understanding from from looking at them slides and some of the conversations we've had as a team is I think it's probably one anomaly and it will be where a client is between 55 and 59 years or 364 days and they want access and. They're not retired exactly, but otherwise it's a much more streamlined process, even for your client trying to access benefits. You're bringing it into the Bureau saying you can invest it straight away. You're not like going through, like you're still going through a claims process, but it's not then going over to a bar, setting up new RF, a new product, that sort of thing. So it's it's just it's quicker, it's cleaner. But I think as well it's great that we now have both options. So that's I think that's the exciting part about.
Yeah. So do we, can you see any changes to employer contributions into a PRSA? For the moment, I think not. It is very topical at the moment. The Finance Bill is going to be published. I personally don't see any. It's, it's too tricky. It's, it's difficult. It's hard to know what to say honest. But I think I'm kind of going back to, you know, the overall what you know, the, the pension report, the landscape report or the that was published back in 2018. It's all about simplifying and harmonizing the landscape. In the recent report there that was published in by by Jack Chambers, they talked about if I have kind of age-related limits when we have an overall threshold. And when you take that into account and consider it in like pensions and PRSASIII kind of don't see any sort of restrictions immediately being put in place. I could be wrong, but that's that's my feeling on it. But we'll see. Yeah. So that's kind of. Then I think.
OK, brilliant. OK. So thanks to everybody again, thank you for your time. If we don't get to see you before a year end, have a great Christmas, hard to, I believe I'm saying that in October. But on behalf of Sinead and myself and everybody here at Standard Life, I really, really mean it. Thanks for the continued support and here's a great Q4 for everybody.

 

Introduction:

To our webinar and the pay in file deadline 2024.
Once again, thanks for taking the time to join us.
My name is Sinead McAvoy and I'm joined by Janice Levin on our Retirement Solutions team.
And we're going to Janice today is going to take you through the pay in file deadline and Standard Life, as you know, is a life savings company specialising in retirement, helping our clients navigate our journey, their journey to and through retirement.
So this is our second session in our winter webinar series.
We have the third session on the 7th of November where Evelyn Hanrahan will take you through ethics.
And then we have our last session which is on the 28th of November where Andrew Paisley will take you through the smaller companies.
So Janice this morning is going to Co and take you through the pay and file deadline 2024 and the questions we get at this time of year.
She's also then going to take you through termination payments and how they interact with pension loan sums.
And lastly, she's going to go through the just give you a brief overview of the pension changes that were announced 2 weeks ago in Finance Bill 2024.
And you can of course, ask questions throughout this session and we will answer them at the end of John's session.
And so I'll just hand you over to John's.
Janice Levin:

Thanks Shalise.
I don't know about you, but I can't believe we're in October already again.
So the quickest, quickest year ever for me anyway.
So what we know is the end of October, the middle of November.
That means that certain individuals have one last opportunity to make a pension contribution and claim relief in respect of their income from 2023.
So if the pension contribution was made between the 1st of January 2024 and the 31st of October, it could be treated for tax purposes as if it was paid last year in 2023.
So that includes personal pension contributions, PRSA contributions, ABC contributions.
If the client is using the revenue online service or Ross, the extended deadline is the 14th November.
If they are not availing of the Ross deadline, extended deadline, then they can, they must pay and file their pension contribution before the 31st of October.
So just another important point, the clients must elect to backdate relief against the 2023 income.
OK, that's not automatic.
So whether they're, you know, completing the paper form or doing it online, they must tick the box then to elect to backdate that relief against 2023.
They're all probably very familiar with this table and this is the age-related limits.
So just a quick reminder.
And these are the limits that apply to tax relief for personal contributions.
And we know that the gross income from tax relief purposes for pension contributions is 115,000.
So revenue recognised two types of taxpayer and their tax status dictates what type of pension they can contribute to.
So if you're a PAYE employee and you're a member of your employer's occupational pension scheme, then you can pay into an ABC arrangement like a group ABC or an ABC peer, say if you are a, if you're a, if you're sorry, if you're a member, if you're not a member of your employer employer's pension scheme, then you're deemed to be in non pensionable employment.
So you can make contributions then be it a personal pension or a peer site, if you're self-employed and you have relevant earnings, you can make a contribution in respect to those earnings via a personal pension or a peer site.
So obviously we know we have to have relevant earnings in order to make a contribution against those earnings and claim relief.
So just a reminder on less relevant earnings, they are earnings less charged as income or losses are capital allowances related to the individual's relevant earnings.
The income that can't be considered for as relevant earnings would be investment income.
So like you know, like rental income, pension income, so any payments from an annuity or an hour for invested peers that can't be can't claim again a relief against that again.
And spouses income can't be taken into account are also income from an investment company where the clients directly or indirectly owns more than 20% of the company.
That income can't be taken into account either.
So if your client has changed their employment status over the last year, you know, that may affect their ability to be able to backdate a pension contribution.
OK. So say if they had left a job in the last year or they retired, once they are no longer a member of the pension scheme related to that employment, they are no longer able to make an ABC, OK.
So, you know, hindsight it's great, but if they were leaving the job, they should have paid the contribution before they paid service because before they left service, because once they've left service, they're no longer a member of the pension scheme, which means they're no longer eligible to make an ABC if your clients say went from non pensionable to pensionable employment.
So, you know, maybe they had a difference non pensionable earnings in the first half of the year or there might have been a waiting period before they could join the employer's pension scheme.
They can make a pension contribution in respect of those non pensionable earnings from 2023 and that can be made to appear as say.
So the forms then that need to be completed.
If you're a PAYE employee, you need to complete income tax form 12 and we can also complete E form 12 and that's when you're, you know doing your return through PAYE anytime.
If you're not finding online then you have to send the paper form to the local revenue office.
self-employed and proprietary directors need to complete income tax Form 11 and as of last year, in order to claim tax relief on a pension contribution, a pension certificate or self declaration form must be concluded now with the submission.
So the pension certificate is what you'll receive when you know, basically like a receipt from, you know, the life company be an RAC cert or peers A cert and it's a copy of that that revenue we're looking for.
Now as we know, you know, this is a really busy time of year, so you know, we might not get that certificate straight away.
So in lieu of that revenue will excel a self declaration form.
Now on that self declaration form, you need to include the date of the payments, the total amount paid, the type of pension, for example, if it's peers A or ABC policy number, the client's name and address, and the name and address of the policy offer.
OK, so we do have a copy of a, of a template on standardlife.ae underneath the literature section.
Or if you contact your BM business owner today, they also have a copy of that template as well.
So the next few slides will go through examples of individuals with dual income.
OK. So that's more than one source of income.
Typically where the employee, the first set of income is from unemployment, where the individual is a member of a contributory pension scheme, OK.
And what I mean by contributory is that they are obliged to make an employee contribution to their employer's pension scheme, OK.
So that's the first set of income.
And then the other source of income then could be like from self-employment.
So usually, I suppose the type of client that we're talking about here usually is AGP who has GMs income and they also have income then from their private practice, you know, or consultants or or something like that.
So it is really important to note that the pensionable employment uses up the earnings limit first.
OK. So if you have an individual who's earning over 150,000 from their pensionable income, sorry, pensionable employment and they're making contributions to peers say or personal pension in respect of their self-employment income, then they need to stop those contributions immediately because they aren't actually eligible to claim relief on those.
So the first example then just going off on excel on the last slide then is where an individual has pensionable employment income of over 115,000.
So we know straight away look you know the pencilable employment income is 120,000 here.
The cap on that obviously is 115,000.
So the maximum contribution then that this 47 year old would make would be 25% of 115,000 which is 28,750.
As that pencilable income is using up the limit force, there is no scope for planning pension contributions to be made in respect of the self-employment income.
So when we're working out what kind of AVC this client could pay, you know, obviously we have to take into account what's already being paid to the pension scheme.
So in this example he's paying 5%, which is €5750 per year.
So we take that off then or the Max contribution of 28,750 which leaves scope then for an ABC of € 23,000.00
Examples:

In the next example.
This individual has total income from both employments which is over 115,000.
OK. So again the Max contribution, the cap is 115,000.
So the maximum contribution that this individual could make across both employments is 14,250.
So now we just need to look at at which way that contribution is going to have to be split.
So again Pentacles employment uses up that limit for us to pay.
This individual is 56, so they can pay 35% of their pensionable income, which is 35,000. OK, so we take off what he's paying into the into the pension scheme already, which is 5000. So there's scope there for 30,000 ABC. Now we look at the employment self-employment income, there's €15,000 of that income that can be used as a, you know, as a pension. So simply we just multiply €15,000 by 35%. So this client then can pay in a personal pension or a peer say contribution of 5250.

Final Example:

Now the final example then this individual's 53 and their total income is less than 150 in grant.
So again you're just kind of looking at both incomes then and what can be what can be paid in respect of each.
Now we know jointly the pension of employment and the self-employment income is €90,000, OK, which means that across both employments the Max contribution is 27,000.
That's 30% of 90 grand.
So again, let's look at the split.
Pensionable employment income use is up the limit.
First this individual is paying, already paying into the employer's pension scheme of two grand a year.
That means then 30% of 40 grand less that €2000.
So it means there's an ABC there that can be paid that the client can really claim relief on.
Then we look at the self-employed income, then there's 50,000.
We can use all of that income that the pension, multiply that by 30% and then there's a scope there for a peers A or a personal pension contribution of 15 brands.
Termination Payments:

Now I'll move on to termination payments.
So as we all know, income from an employment or an office is taxable under Schedule B.
You know, there are certain special rules that tax rules that apply to any kind of lump sum that's paid on the termination of an employee's employment.
OK. So there could be, you know, a redundancy payment, severance payment, golden handshake annex, Gracian payments, any kind of payment which is a lump sum and recognition of past service can be paid and it is generally liable to PAYE.
However, there are some exceptions.
So the exemptions that would apply to termination payments is the statutory redundancy elements basic exemption increase exemption.
And the one we're probably almost familiar with is the SCSV calc.
So that's the standard capital superannuation benefit.
So redundancy occurs when an individual is, you know, their employment is terminated and they're not replaced.
Redundancy payments acts brought in like a minimum entitlement to redundancy payments provided that the individual has at least two years service.
OK, So if you know an employee has at least two years service, then at a minimum they are entitled to two weeks pay for every year of service plus another week's pay, OK. And that payment is completely tax free.
Now the maximum salary that can be taken into account is €600 per week.
So if we look at Mary, she's been made redundant, she's worked for 16 years with her employer and her gross weekly earnings are €750.
Now we know obviously €600 is the is the Max ceiling salary that can be taken into account here.
So Mary then is going to get 2 weeks pay for 16 years of service plus an extra week multiplied by €600 and she'll receive a payment debt of 19,800, which is completely tax free.
Now if the employer voluntarily, you know, wants to pay an additional lump sum to the employee over and above what the, the statutory redundancy payment is part or all of that payment could potentially be tax free provided that the payment wasn't, you know, included in their contract of appointment.
So in other words, it's it's ex Gracia, an ex Gracia lump sum might be exempt from income tax. Peers are in USC and that's subject to an overall lifetime limit then of €200,000.
So it was when we work out these exemptions, that's where we see the link with pensions occurring, OK, In particular the increased exemption and the SES decalc, we need to include any pensions lump sums that might be payable for that client.
Basic Exemption:

So the basic exemption then this is 10,000 EUR 110,000 and €160.00 + 765 euro for each complete year of service, OK.
This applies in all cases and it's only complete years of service that could be taken into account.
The lump sum, whether or not the client has a lump sum or is entitled to a lump sum doesn't matter for this calculation because it's not impacted by by that.
So in this example, Alan has been working and his employment has been terminated after 20-6 years and 10 months.
We can't take the 10 months into account as we know because it's only complete years of service.
So in this case, his basic exemption it's 10,160 plus €765 * 26 years of service and that gives him a basic exemption figure of 30,000 and 50.
The increased exemption is the basic exemption figure plus 10,000.
And this applies, right, if the individual has not claimed the increased exemption in the last 10 years and the individual has no right to a lump sum under a pension scheme related to this employment, or if they do, they irrevocably give up that right to the lump sum.
So if we look at the example here of Alan again, his we know that his basic exemption figure is 30,000 and €50.
Now Alan's employer didn't operate a pension scheme and said they paid into, you know, multiple clear essays for their employees.
So because Alan doesn't have a right to a pension lump sum from a pension scheme related to this employment, then he'll he can avail of the increased exemption of 10 lbs and you're OK without having to do anything and not having to waive anything because the peers say isn't, you know, a pension scheme.
So the lump sum payable from that wouldn't be included.
Now, if Alan was a member of a pension scheme and he was entitled to a lump sum, then if Alan was to, if his lump sum, say it was over 10 grand and Alan signed that waiver, then the 10,000 increase exemption event, you know, essentially cancels it out.
But if Alan's lump sum was less than €10,000, then the €10,000 figure would be reduced by whatever lump sum he was entitled to from that pension scheme.
SCSB Calc:

OK. So the SCSB calc again this is this usually is the one that gives us the highest, the highest exemption figure.
So to calculate this then A is the annual average annual schedule leave remuneration over the last three years.
We multiply that by B which is the number of complete years to the date of termination of employment.
We divide that by 15 and then we take away C&C.
Is the present value of the tax free pension lump sum received or receivable under a pension scheme related to this employment.
So if an individual has a right to a pension scheme, a pension lump sum from a scheme and they irrevocably sign a waiver, then C is going to equal 0 in this case and there won't be any offsets.
So usually you're going to get a higher exemption figure.
Now C, if the individual is not signing a waiver, then C is either going to be, you know, the the value of the lump sum.
If the individual is retiring as well as leaving service or if they're not going to retire and they want to, you know, keep in, preserve benefit in the scheme, then see then in that case it's going to be the present day value of the lump sum that they're due in the future.
So if we go back to Mary again, Mary is receiving a termination payment of 55,000.
We know we've already calculated that Mary 19,800 of that payment is statutory redundancy.
So it's completely tax free.
And that means then that Mary has a balance of €35,200 which is potentially taxable.
Now Mary doesn't want to take her her retirement benefits straight away.
So she's been given a figure then of 18 grands which is their present day value of her tax free lump sum from the pension scheme.
So you can see here then the two the two scenarios, if Mary signs the waiver, there's no offset there of the lump sum.
So you know, she's getting a figure there of €37,333 and that means then that the balance of 35 grand that was potentially taxable, you know, could be tax free if she does sign the waiver.
If she doesn't sign the waiver, then there is going to be a portion of her redundancy payment that will be taxable.
So look, the highest exemption figure in both cases is bolded here on them on this slide.
So, you know, usually the highest exemption figure is going to be a strange shootout between, you know, getting a higher lump sum now but losing your right to a lump sum from the pension scheme in the future or paying some tax now, but, you know, retaining that right to a lump sum then whenever the client decides to retire.
So again, in Mary's case, you know, she signs the waiver, her payment of 55,000 is completely tax free.
If she doesn't sign the waiver, then there's €12,800 then that is potentially taxable.
So I suppose we can't really, you know, ever underestimate the value of, of the client's lump sum.
And you know, I suppose in order to be able to, to steer the client in the right direction, you really do need a lot of information. So you need to know the terms of the of the termination of the employment, if there is a payment there, you know what breakdown is statutory, what breakdown is ex Gracia, what value you know as long as someone is she due for the pension scheme with that. So those are all the things that you really need to be able to give the client to steer.

Important Points:

So these are some important points. These are kind of questions that we get asked to go bit throughout the year.
So just to clarify, there are two tax free lifetime limits.
You have your 200,000 tax free lump sum limit from pensions and then you also have a 200,000 ex Gracia termination limit.
Now it is possible that you know if somebody was retiring they could have both at the same time.
So they could have their 200,000 tax free lump sum limits and they could also be availing of the 200 KX for AC limit, but that doubled if you'd like, would only really happen if an individual had long service on that high salaries.
Any remaining part of the termination payment is liable to income tax and USC, but not PSI.
And again, only lump sums relating to the employer's pension scheme were taken into account.
So if we think back to Alan's example, then he had a peer say so in that case his lump sum wouldn't be taken into account there.
And only tax free lump sums are offset against SCSB.
OK. So if you've in in decline to you've got a pension lump sum of 250,000, you know the cap obviously is 200 brands, they would have had to pay tax on that 50,000 before the SCSB calc.
The maximum that can be taken into account is 200,000 because that's the tax free part.
And finally, I think it was last year revenue added in, added a new Appendix 5 to the manual, which kind of gives guidance then on on how the tax free lump sum should be calculated.
We get that question a little bit as well. Like you know should I use 25% or should we use three 80s etcetera. So they have provided a good few examples there. So that's definitely worth the look.
Finance Bill Announcements:

Now finally to the brings me bringing me to the end, end of my part here is just to chat about some of the announcements that were made.
There are changes that were announced in the Finance Bill there a couple of weeks ago.
So no real surprise with the SFT. We knew that was going to happen. That was announced a couple of months ago.
So we know that the SFT is going to increase 200 by 200,000 annually from 2026 to 2029.
Now, it's not really quite what it seems as the legislation says that the value of the benefits that the client has already taken must also increase by the same percentage as the SFT.
OK. So you know, if an individual has taken retirement benefits already, they may benefit in part or or maybe not at all from the increase.
So in particular, say where a client has already matured 2 million, they can't benefit from the increase.
So you know in 2029 when it goes up to 2.88 million, we know that where the standard grain tax of the PET of 60,000 is paid on a lump sum, the overall pension threshold increases by 150,000.
So in 2029, you know the real SFT will be 2.950.
There's going to be no change in the both elements, elements of the pension lump sum and there won't be any increase in line with the SFT.
So you're still have your 200 brand tax free and your 300,000 at 20%.
There's a significant change announced in the Finance Bill with regards to employer contributions to a PRSA.
At the moment and up until the 1st of January 2025, there are no limits on what an employer can pay into a peer, say for an employee.
However, from the 1st of January 2025, there's going to be a cap on the employer contribution and that's going to be 100% of the employees remuneration for that current year.
Now the employee contributions are still subject to the usual, you know the age-related limits and they don't count towards the employer limits of 100% of salary.
And the employer contribution which is over the 100% of the client's salary is going to be a big for the employee.
And the legislation does say that there is an allowance to use the prior year's earnings where the current earnings are reduced.
So, you know, if the client was on sick leave or something like that, they are able to use their previous year's salary for that 100% cap.
Now the only the additional changes then where it was now.
Thus, if you travel to transfer from AB and peers say to a vested peers say it's going to be deemed a BCE.
And finally then the taxation measures for the new AE or what do we call it, my future funds, My future funds.
They were announced also in the Finance Bill.
So look, you know, we, we knew that it was going to be in line as much as possible to the peer saying.
And it also says that there that there's a retirement, you know, the the from the AE scheme, you get a 25% lump sum and the balance will be paid as a lump sum under PAYE.
Yeah, that brings me to the end, Wybert.
Q&A Session:

That's great. Thanks Janice.
So we have a few questions that have come in which is great.
So I will the two of us can go through them, but I'll ask you one of them here.
Can someone there who got statutory pay put that money into their pension or would this be recommended?
So it's, it's not deemed pensionable income. So you can't.
But obviously if you do have scope in under your pensionable earnings, you can't put an ABC, but you cannot use that statutory amount.
You can't count it towards your income for pension purposes.
Yeah. So that's that one.
I mean massive difference from going sole trader to director of a limited company mid year for a pension contribution.
So yeah, I mean, I suppose when they're scheduled deeds, scheduled deeds, Schedule E, Yeah.
So I suppose you just need to make sure that you're paying into the right products.
So for half of that year, you know that scheduled D income.
So that'll be paid then any contribution in respect to that six months when they were scheduled D needs to be paid into a peers A or a personal pension.
And then when they're a director, then see peers A or a pension scheme.
Yeah, and I guess yeah. When you're a company, director of employer contributions can go into the occupational pension scheme appears to say.
But obviously if you're a sole trader you're not employed by anyone.
So you're just looking at employee contributions and working off those age-related limits that Janice went through.
If a client is dual income PAYE and relevant earnings and they have an occupational pension scheme, can they make the contribution so the combinations of the the due, so the PAYE and other earnings, can they make that full contribution to the occupational pension scheme?
So is it so they have their PAYE? Yeah, the dual income, yeah, no, they can't like the the income pension contribution in respect of the PAYE pencilable income can only be paid into the scheme or an ABC arrangement linked to that scheme.
Any pension contribution in respect of other employments will have to be made via a peer, say, or personal pensions.
Because they have an occupational pensions and they can only make additional contributions to the scheme or an ABC.
Yeah, yeah. Perfect.
After redundancy, if you move your occupational pension scheme to a personal retirement bond, does the lump sum impact go away?
Assuming I'm assuming they're talking about whether it's waived or not, that carries through. Doesn't it does. Into the into the PRB.
Sorry, I'm just trying to read tax relief for joint assessment married individuals. Is the total earnings taken into account or is it the set of each individuals?
Yeah. So it depends on what both individuals earn. You can't if you're jointly assessed, you can't just if both, if both individuals say earn 50,000 each, say the the husband can't just use the 100,000, whatever he earns, he put makes contributions in relation to him. Whatever the spice earns, that's the they make contributions in respect to that.
Is there a salary cap of 115 a 115,000 for PRSA contributions?
That's probably there is for the. For the personal contributions, yeah, to appear. So yeah, the lawyer contributions there is no, I'm sorry, 2025. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Does an ABCPRSA have to be taken at the same time as the main scheme benefits or is it treated like an ordinary PRSA?
No has to go at the same time as the as the main scheme benefits.
A client looking to make a contribution larger than their salary was advised by an accountant to make the company contribution before the 5th of November when the Finance Act is enacted. Have you heard of this?
Yeah, I, I think there's still some mumblings in the marketplace that once the Finance Bill is enacted that employer contributions where it's capped to the employee salary will come in from the passing of the Finance Act.
It, it's still not 100% clear, but it does look like based on Finance Bill that it is actually effective with the 1st of January 2025

However, we are waiting on clarity or on that specific point from the Department of Finance, we have asked that question. So we're waiting on clarity around that. But I think to to be sure I think get that contribution in before the passing of the Finance Bill, which we know it's going to be early November and then there'll be no issues.
Q&A Session Continued:

Dual income does. Does individual have to maximise ABC payment pension scheme before being able to make a payment against scheduled D income?
Yeah, they do if they're, if they're a member of a contributory pension scheme, so as in they have to make an employee contribution to that scheme that yes and they have to use up that that pensible income first.
But if the pension scheme is not contributory, they don't have to, right. Exactly. You know, if they want, they can then just maximize the income from the scheduled income in that case. That's only if they aren't obliged to pay into the occupational pension scheme from the pensible point.
Or net present value of a future lump sum from a pension. Are the industry using 25% lump sum are still using salary and service calcs?
I I guess the answer is you can use either or. Typically if you're not waving your lump sum, you'll you'll use the lower amount because that means then that they're taxed less. But yeah, so if you're not waving your lump sum, you'll use the lower of. That would be what? We're seeing yeah, and and. And that makes sense. Again, that's that's in the Appendix 5 of the Revenue Pensions manual. Definitely worth it looking at. As I said earlier, it does have a couple of examples of when to use 25% or 388 Sir.
No, that's great. That was loads of questions, So thank you for that. We will wrap it up now. So thank you so much for joining today's webinar. We will of course, be applying for CPD and once we have it, we'll issue it to you along with these slides. I can see if you're best for the slide. So absolutely, we'll send them out to you. So thank you again for joining us and goodbye.
Thank you.
 

Introduction:

Good morning everyone and you're very welcome to our webinar on corporate investments.
As always, thank you for taking the time to join us.
My name is Sinead McAvoy and I'm joined today by Pat Manley, our pension Development Manager.
As you know, Standard Life, part of the Phoenix Group is a life saving company specialising in retirement, helping our clients navigate their journey to and through retirement.
Today, Pat is going to take you through the technical aspects and business opportunities around corporate investments.
If you have any questions that you want to ask them, please put them in the mailbox and I'll put them to him at the end of the session and I'll hand you over to him.
Pat Manley:

OK. Thanks very much, Sinead.
Good morning, everyone.
Look, I hope everyone this morning finds the presentation to be of benefit.
As Sinead said, the aim of the presentation this morning is to go through the technical aspects of corporate investments opportunities.
And as I see it, I know many of you will probably be familiar with this area as I did the presentation this time last year and for some of you it will be new enough.
So hopefully everyone will get something out of it.
Certainly what we have found is that advisors that are proactive in this area are definitely yielding an additional income stream and I think would like that and going forward.
So I'll kick on with that presentation.
General Overview:

So I suppose look just a bit of a general overview and I'll move to the last bullet point first.
I suppose in, in a pyramid of priority for a better world, I'd always put pension planning ahead of corporate investments because with pension planning, you're moving company wealth, interpersonal wealth.
Whereas with the corporate investment, no matter how good the presentation is today in, in, in essence, what you'll have is that you'll have funds at the end of the day that are enhancing the, the company balance sheet.
Whereas with pension planning you're moving kind of company wealth into personal wealth.
So I would see this almost like an extra discussion point once the retirement planning discussion has happened.
Just going down through the points in this slide, certainly seeing it as a growing market and, and I would say this market has increased since probably the financial crisis back in about 2008 when interest rates in Ireland almost went to zero for a 10 year plus.
So I'd say the first spike we would have seen in corporate investments would have been when, when interest rates in effect went to zero.
I would say a secondary spike about 3 years ago when retail banks were writing to large corporate and in investors about negative interest rates.
I'd say the first fight we would have seen in sales and this would have been with my Standard Life hat on, is when we launched the Barclays and soft gym deposit options within the life insurance contract.
So there would have been three kind of spikes.
And even though interest rates have decreased over the last year, we still see strong investment, particularly into our deposit options.
And we're also seeing a little trend now as interest rates have gone back into maybe funds being invested in our Euro global liquidity fund, which is offering currently and I think gross yield of about 3.7%.
And, and some investors are kind of having funds like holding that fund as a holding account ultimately to go into maybe low risk options through Vanguard or my folio or otherwise.
Thirdly, like he when we're talking about corporate investments, we're not talking about the large multinationals in this country, the Pfizer's, Gilead's, Intel's of this world putting money in corporate investments.
We're talking about the sector in Ireland and that's doing quite well that has surplus funds, surplus funds and cash.
And in reality a corporate investment is about investing surplus company funds within a life assurance contract.
And when I'm in surplus company funds, I'm talking about those luxury company funds that are drifting maybe in deposit, not your market for immediate capital investment or to support trading CU, support current trading conditions, but potentially investing funds outside maybe of your normal retail deposit and putting funds through a life insurance contract.
And as I go through the presentation, there are tax advantages by investing through a life insurance contract.
I've been through the pension planning piece, which is a separate discussion and in my opinion, a priority discussion before corporate investments.
Moving Forward:

OK. OK. So moving forward and I've covered off a bit of this.
Obviously there are low deposit rates from pillar banks currently and that invariably can bring up a discussion about a corporate, about a corporate investment.
And the second line again is important and I've mentioned this a few times and I've probably mentioned it a little bit about it already, by having a deposit alternative within a life insurance contract, there are tax advantages and I'll go through that in a minute versus a company having money directly, we'll see on a term deposit with a retail bank in this country, there is no doubt low to medium risk are the most prevalent options.
It's probably fair to say company directors maybe are a little bit more cautious with company funds than they would be with their own funds.
And I suppose the last point in this always gathers a bit of interest with the advisor world.
The average investment or premium is quite high and I suppose cases where I would come across my desk not for any investment analysis, but for some technical question or otherwise I'd certainly been seen be seen figures north of 200, 150,000 and probably in most instances north of half a million investment.
So certainly for advisors that are focused in this area, it definitely can yield very good business.
Corporate Investments:

OK, so corporate investments companies investing in life assurance bonds from 2001, there's a Azure and and a lot of this is relevant to your personal investor investing investment bonds, investments return returns grow tax free.
Exit tax is deducted potentially at the end of every eight years and ultimately for a company or a corporate investment.
The key point here is that the only tax relevant is the exit tax at date of encashment.
So our internal tax advisors have told us that couple of things #1 income as of rolls up in a, in a, in an investment in a life insurance contract is not subject to the close company surcharge when the policy is in cashed down the road, whenever that is, it's not treated as a, as a capital event.
So it's not subject to CGT.
And furthermore, when funds are returned to the company, it doesn't have to be brought into account for corporation tax purposes.
So on simple terms, it's just returned to the company.
It's not treated as a taxable receipt per SE.
OK. So our internal tax advisors have told us that the only tax for the corporate investment is the 25% exit tax on the growth when the policy is in cash.
Now we say to we say to all advisors for the clients to have that verified by their own tax advisors.
But I rarely have ever had had a kickback on that.
And from previously working in cases before Standard Life and my own research, what I've just said there over the last couple of minutes I believe is representative of the industry.
But I have an example coming up in the minute which I think will give a bit of clarity around that area.
Close Companies:

OK. I always find this slide a bit of a mouthful, but I think for people listening in here, look in reality most Irish residence companies are close companies which in effect they may be, they may have those company surcharge tax and implications based on the last line.
And the last line here is a surcharge of 20% is paid and total undistributed investment and rental income of a close company.
So I have an example on the next page which kind of will give a bit of, I think clarity around the close company surcharge versus a direct investment in a life insurance contract.
Just to take out of this slide is the main market for corporate life insurance contract investment are Irish resident companies.
The majority of Irish resident companies are close companies.
You'll see things up there like the word participator.
A participator is someone who's an active interest in the income or share capital of the company, but variably.
Most SMEs in Ireland are close companies and and that's the relevant of this slide.
The close company surcharge is a question that may come up as people are proactive in this area.
And I'll go through this in the next slide and hopefully I'll, I'll articulate it that people will understand it correctly.
Example:

OK. So I've mentioned in a previous slide there that if, if, if a company puts money into a corporate investment bond, our internal tax advisors have told us that the only, the only tax availability is the 25% exit tax, a date of encashment, whatever that figure is, that figure is returned to the company.
And they've also thought that it's not brought into account for corporation tax purposes.
So it's not treated as a as a taxable receipt per SE.
So, so if we take that in terms of a corporate investment, now let's just take an example on the second section here under direct investment.
And I'd like to consider direct investment kind of investment on non core trading.
So let's take an example here for the second one.
Let's say myself and my wife have an electrical company.
Our company deals with the wholesale and retail of electrical goods.
Now the normal tax we pay on profits in the company is 12 1/2%.
Once with everything we're doing is related to the core business of electrical goods as a selling and wholesaling of saying.
But let's say we went into other areas. Let's say we use some retained profits to purchase say a property wholly unrelated to our electrical business and decided to rent it out. That would be deemed direct investment or as I like to call it non-core trading investment. So let's say we bought a property, we rented it out. The rental income I'm saying would be subject to 25% corporation tax each year in income, right. And plus there would also be a 20% close company surcharge on that income if that was not redistributed to the company directors within 18 months of the end of the accounting in which it arose. And the reason for the close company surcharge is to discourage the practice of retaining non-trading income and profits in a company that would otherwise be distributed to the shareholder of the company directors say as POOE or otherwise. And finally, certainly if down the road that particular property was sold, there's potentially 33% of down CGT on the sale of the investment. So if you just take an investment in a life assurance contract versus a direct investment, whether it's in a deposit account, a term deposit account, certain company shares or property, any interest and dividends, rental income would be subject to the 25% corporation tax each year on income. The close company surcharge as I outlined is also potentially applicable. And in the case of shares and property, if those investments are ultimately sold down the road, there potentially is at 33% CGT. Now I don't think anyone the call needs to be an expert on the close companies surcharge, but ultimately that question may crop up and definitively having a kind of an understanding around us will give you an advantage because it does crop up in meetings like invariably where does the whole corporate investment conversation crop up? It's number one company directors. They know they've substantial cash balances, balances on account were returned is not being great at the moment. And secondly would be the whole company close the company close surcharge. They might bring that up or say so having a knowledge around saying I believe is important.

Illustrative Slide:

OK, this is only a bit of a slide as an indicative slide. It just shows investment in the life policy, an assumed growth rate of return versus a direct deposit. And I mentioned earlier on monies placed on a term deposit is seen as a direct investment. So if you think about it, as interest rates increase, the close company surcharge potentially may be an issue. Now I would use this as illustrative for illustration purposes only for the investment in the life policy, the assumptions in terms of gross allocations and charges in government levy are on the next page with the direct deposit here, we've just taken an annual assumed rate of 2% annual equivalent rate. That's roughly speaking term deposit rates on offer through the main retail banks in Ireland at the moment. They might be just slightly higher and the shots showing you equivalent and gross returns. If you look at the right-hand column under direct deposit there the 6466 is the 25% tax charge and on the direct deposit and the 5173 is actually the close company surcharge and it shows the equivalent net returns on the same. OK, so that's just for illustrative purposes only, but you can have a look we'll send out with the slides later and you can have a look at this in your own time, but it's a handy slide to have in your travels. You can see here. These are just certain assumptions. Here it zooms a return of 2% even though it shows three business net at the 1% management charge, gross allocation of 101 percent, net allocation of 100. And it's also important to note the life insurance levy as it stands currently does apply to corporate investments as it applies to individual investors per SE. And then you can see what I've mentioned about the 25% corporation tax and direct deposit, the close company surcharge and how all that works per SE. OK. But I would say, and going back to an earlier slide here, if I can just go back to this slide here, certainly once it's articulated correctly and in a simple fashion to company directors, my understanding, and I've been in this industry quite a long time, just understanding that the simplicity of the eggs attacks being the only tax charge and also the insurance company remits that exit tax. It's not the responsibility of a company accountant or otherwise. The simplicity of saying certainly, the Barclays and soft gin options and maybe the low risk Vanguard options are prevalent in this space. And but certainly the simplicity of tax and understanding saying ultimately it does strike a chord with company directors in my experience when this discussion has had versus the pre taxes, particularly on non-core trading or direct investments.
Benefits of Investing Through a Life Policy:

OK. OK. So the benefits of investing through a life policy exit tax 25%, the whole gross roll up piece, even though after eight years there would be notion legs of tax supply. Now it's probably fair to say even though I have seen plenty corporate investments continue on after the eight years, you know, I would say in the majority of venture instances they're probably in cash before that date. Our external tax of advisors have stated that the gain should be seen from the close companies or charge which I've covered already. And I also mentioned that the life company is responsible for the deduction and payment of tax to the revenue and there's no company accounting needs to get involved with same. And obviously there's a wide range of investment options allowing companies to diversify within the one policy. And I would ask you that, look, you're a Standard Life business manager and, or invest solutions team can tailor excellence, proposals. And just one other point, as I'm talking that I just remember we also offer sterling deposit rates as well, and they're running higher at the moment than your Irish equivalent. And they may suit certain clients who you may meet on your travels, in the future. But certainly our investment solutions team and your Standard Life business manager will be very, very familiar about tailoring specific proposals for you in advance of whatever meeting.
Charities:

OK, I put this in last year and I put it in again because it does crop up. Charities can invest in the Standard Life investment bond right now. Like when I think of charities and I mentioned this last year, like I think of charities in the normal sense such as like your concern, your Pieter House, your Marymount Hospice. But there are over 11,000 registered charities in Ireland and like and a lot of companies have registered charitable status that you mightn't think so. Like the Irish Tax Institute is a registered charity, institute of bankers of which some people on the call may be members of is a registered charity. So there are lots of companies out there that have registered charitable status. And in my experience, you know, boards of management in these charities might be cash rich and they're as assertive as any other set of boards of directors wanting to get the best of returns for their clients. But the big thing here is the exit tax and gains is 0% versus the 25% that I've spoken about already. Now, one point to just know a lot of charities don't. When you speak to them, they might just not have an investment mandate to invest in a life insurance contract, our own guaranteed investment, but that's easily solved. That's just minutes and board meeting and some letters signed off and company headed note paper that it was discussed at a recent board meeting and the board of management has agreed that charity aids can now invest in life insurance contracts and also unguaranteed investments with insane, particularly if they're moving away from kind of a deposit equivalent. The reason I put it up there is my own working experience has seen a lot of charities fairly well off and fairly cash rich. One to do and 1:00 to and invest funds and rather than just leave the drift on a retail bank deposit and I certainly believe the Barclays and the soft gin deposit option suits this, suits this particular niche particularly. I mentioned there are about 11,000 registered charities in Ireland now. I'm sure there's many charities such as GA clubs and different things that are not cash rich but you will they'll find companies that are cartridge that have charitable status. How you know they're a charity? Then the CHY number and it's a 5 digit number and it's on their company headed note paper. And if you really want to get into this, you can Google in the charities regulator website, you know, all charities in Ireland and maybe some in your own local area. The last point, a question that comes up continually, credit unions cannot invest in life policies. So credit union, that question comes up like credit unions would have lots of cash and deposits and everything on their balance sheet and like similar to banquet of the capital markets division that use other financial instruments to deliver income for their balance sheet. Unfortunately, credit unions are stuck in terms of what they can do, but right now they cannot invest in life policies. It's just a question. You mentioned it last year, but I'd certainly have had it 3 or 4 * a year to date as well. So it does crop up, but right now they're not regulated. They're regulated to invest in life policies.
Housekeeping:

OK, just a couple of other housekeeping slides before I finish up there. To do a corporate investment, the company must be incorporated and resident in Ireland. That seems straightforward enough. The directors must be resident in Ireland, are habitually resident in another European jurisdiction. And, and the way I look at it, there's always a question that we have to refer to someone else. But look, if, if, if someone has an unusual instance, like our risk division would always have the final sign off and company residency, director residency before allowing your corporate investment to be put in place. But look, I'm talking about, you know, unusual circumstances there, but there always is the odd usual circumstances people know. Normally we would, I would advise a minimum of two directors as lives assured because I suppose what you wouldn't want is a policy having to be surrendered, particularly if it was invested in markets and markets were depressed. And that might happen if you had only one director as a life insured down the policy. So we'd normally recommend 2 directors as lives assured our policy can our our our product can accept single and or regular premiums. My experience in the mean it's probably single premiums we've seen as I've seen as investments, but it can accept regular premiums. Make sure you get proper illustration, the exit tax of 25%. One thing that's can be forgotten about a little bit is the 1% government levy still applies to corporate investments as it does to individual investors and AML and our new business team, your Standard Life business manager can support you in terms of the paperwork for corporate investments, it's pretty low. It's something no, I, I don't see in a day-to-day basis, but probably a little bit. It's undoubtedly just a little bit different the AML required and for your individual investment.

Key Takeaways:

OK, So look, this is my last slide here. I suppose the key takeaways, it's like, I wouldn't say it's a new market, but it's a it's, it's a market which requires advice. I would say the advisors that are making he in this world are those that are proactive. So I'm sure many of you go to meetings with pre prepared agendas and you're often thinking about what else can I talk to someone about? Their I've all their pension sorted, I've all their protection needs sorted. I know the company is doing very well. What else can I talk to them about? Well, this is an area now that I would think if this is put on a, a person's agenda, you know, if you were to land a sailing quarter, you know, I think it would have a very worthwhile effect on, on, on bottom line at the end of the year. But it does require, I think, Proactivity from the advisor. Look, it's I don't think it's that will lend in someone's lap hoping that you would get questions on a on a on a deer a weekly basis. I mentioned about the lower tax liability. I mentioned about about the fun choice. As an aside, I mentioned earlier which I've nearly forgotten about it. We have sterling options available and that is attractive as well. Our investment solutions team can tailor support proposals to support yourself. Our Standard Life business managers are very familiar with same myself, Sinead and and and Janice and the pensions tech and the retirement solutions technical team are available to support any technical questions also, you know, in advance of the meeting or a question that cropped up in a meeting. But we, we are there. We are there to support you. So look, that's it for me. Sinead may have a couple of questions, but thanks very much for your time this morning. It is appreciated.
Q&A Session:

And that that was really important. Yeah, we have a couple of questions which I will put to you. So the first one is typically in such corporate investments, who are who is the life assured and what happens to the corporate investment when the individual dies?
OK. So typically the lives assured would be the let's take a family owned business, husband and wife as company director Sinead. Typically they need the directors. OK, occasionally I get a question, can you have maybe a director and a key employee in the company's life assured as well? And the answer is yes, you'd invariably have two people as lives assured because particularly if it was a market based investment, you wouldn't want the policy in cashed if if, if there was only one life assured in the policy, the policy in cashes when that person dies. So typically you'd have two people. Typically we'd call it the husband and wife company director, but you can have a key employee as well. And then on death, it's second death that yes, the policy is in cash. So it's so if you have two directors of the life steward, for example, if the first director unfortunately passes away and they're just removed from the policy and the policy will not be in cash until. The second continues on the remaining life assured, and so it doesn't. It's it's not, it doesn't if there was one life assured only. So it's not something we'd recommend at all. Yeah. So it always you should always have two life assured and it's the insurance policy is joint life second death where the payment is made. Yeah, so that. Yeah, that makes sense. In terms of the timing of the corporate investment bond itself, so should the corporate investment be made before the company year end or after the company year end or does it matter it? Doesn't matter per SE, because if you think about in a pension context, right, So an employer contribution, we'd say to an employer sponsor peer say is allowable as a business expense in the year of payment, right? There's no tax relief. It's, it's, you're not comparing kind of apples and apples here. It's just using retain profits in a company and you're either investing with say in a life insurance contract or as I went through the other example of directly investing in a term deposit certain company shares or buying a property. So there is no tax relievability on premium, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it can be either or. Yes, it's what you're saying. There's a continuation on the life assured question. If one of the two lives dies, can the person be replaced as a life insured my? Understanding is not. No, no, no, you can never replace the life insured. Replace the life insured. The only way you could do it isn't cash in the policy and. Starting a new one again? Yeah, here's another one. If a corporate invests and then takes funds out in three or five years, is the exit tax adjusted for the period invested or is it always a flat 25%? It's. Always a flat 25%. We're being asked, it's about that close company surcharge that you spoke about and you know the way we standardized would have gotten external tax advice and our own internal tax advice. And typically we and and this is we have gotten this guidance from our own tax team that we cannot share that. No, we can't share the actual yes document that we've got, but like I'm sharing the overputs of saying so. The question is, could that be shared with clients and their tax advisors to prevent pushback from client tax advisors who do not understand how the close company avoidance policy works? My understanding is not Sinead. So like I often get questioned, you know, I've mentioned our internal tax advisers have told us and invariably I'm telling you what they have told us without sending the transcript to advisors because we're not allowed to do that. Because the advice has been given to Standard Life, Standard Life advice and, and yeah, and it is a question that's and, and it's a fair. It is a fair question, but I can't send something on tax advisor headed note paper and say this is what we've been told. Yeah. And it is, yeah. But we're we're we're giving the advice from. Yes and yeah and yeah. And to mention again, I did say it like in my opinion, it's representative of the industry, right? It's not, it's not Standard Life having their own stance on it. I believe this is representative of the life industry. The commentaries I've made this one. OK. And are we seeing much risk based investments obviously with the deposit options and the interest rates that have fallen is like that that that was obviously a huge kind of selling point and that was the main investment for those corporate investors? So what are? People going into now like some are probably still going for some of the deposit options, but it's not. Yeah. No, no, if you just bear with me, I just want to Yeah. No, no, no, I just, I just had some rates written down. Yeah. OK. So certainly this time last year, Barclays and Soft Gene were 100% the flavor of them, all, right? Because now everyone one knows Barclays, I think it's for 100,000 plus. Soft Gen. has different rates on amounts between 2:50 and a million and a million plus, but rates have gone back on average about 3% growth. So if I just take soft Gen. the five year race when I was talking this time last year would have been 20.38%. It's just not now 15% in a year. You know the three-year race has gone from 11.35 to 7.87. Notwithstanding, I mentioned about investing within a life assurance contract. So even though you're putting a deposit because it's within a life insurance contract, it avoids, let's call it dirt close companies. So it's still attractive. But what we are seeing a little bit more that we didn't see this time last year is maybe some funds going into the Euro Global Liquidity Fund and clients thinking maybe just leave it there for a little bit before we decide what to do. Good. Now the reason they're comfortable to leave it in the Euro Global Liquidity Fund is the current gross yield is even 3.7% per annum. Look, I know investment guru, but maybe people are waiting until post US elections or something like that before drink feeding into the market you need. So it's all about the fat find an individuality. But even though rates have gone back on the Barclays software were still attractive within the life insurance contract, but certainly the Vanguard and the low risk my folio discussion, Euro Global liquidity Fund, which is all outside of my roommate. I know that discussion is happening a bit more. Yeah. Yes. And that is, that is a question that is coming up a lot. And finally, while it's not corporate investment related, but exit tax related, there is a lot of chat around exit tax for personal investors, which we know is 41% at the moment. Do you see it coming then? Well, certainly the indications are from listening to a fellow corporate and Michael McGrath like they have taken on board representations from I think Insurance Ireland and other areas that the whole exit tax piece on personal investment to be looked at versus we know drug tax at the moment I think is 43% of taxes running at 41. The indications are without being able to go to print on anything. I would say this this is at the kind of table that decision may be made on equalization in the medium short to medium term. That seems to be the indication without having any exact factual information on that. I, I don't they're never, it feels like there's never been a, a a kind of greater appetite to reduce it than there is. Absolutely. Absolutely. If it's ever going to happen, it feels like it might happen this time. But you know, it's like anything. It's like anything, yeah, But we'll be hopeful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that is all of our questions at the moment. If anyone has any further questions or anything comes to mind after this session, feel free obviously to e-mail Pat or myself or the technical team and we will get back to you. So we're going to wrap it up again and thanks again so much for joining us. We will of course, be applying for CPD and we will issue that to you along with the slides after this session. And finally, all that's left for me to say is thanks again and goodbye. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome to the first of our Spring Series webinar. As always, thanks for taking time to come and join us. My name is Alan Carthy, and today I'm joined by Sinead McAvoy, our Head of Retirement Solutions. I mentioned this is the first of our Spring Series webinar. And in the Spring Series, you get to experience 3 pillars of our retirement specialism, obviously, Retirement Solutions Today, Investment Solutions and Second Life. As you know, we're very keen and looking at the journey to and through retirement and we believe very strongly in that there are three core elements, financial planning, being socially connected and being mentally prepared.

However, today we're going to be talking about auto-enrolments and there's been a lot of media coverage, a lot of news over the last couple of months. And I dare say, Sinead, I don't know if we thought we'd get to here because there's been so much news about it. Will it happen? Won't it happen? But it looks like now it is definitely going to happen in 2025 and there are some pretty big implications to the advisor market and the employees employer market in the world.

Absolutely. It has been a long time coming. Seamus Brennan mooted it back in 2006 when he was then the Minister for Social Protection. He recommended that an auto-enrolment scheme would be put in place. So here we are nearly 19 years later and it actually feels like it is within reach. There's still a good bit to do, but at some stage of 2025 it will be up and running.

So the bigger one around 25 S the auto-enrolment bill was published and you know it's a longer I think it was 91 pages. So the idea of today is we want to look at some of the facts and how the scheme is going to be applied and also I suppose to point out some things that advisors should start considering as this becomes a fruition.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've been chatting to many advisors over the last number of months. And it's not that like as we all know, the auto-enrolment, there isn't an advisor piece as part of others, but advisors are being asked by their clients, their company direct clients, small employers. What do I do? Should I set up a group PRSA retail master trust or should I wait for the auto-enrolment? And I suppose today we're just going to go through the details of that auto-enrolment scheme and then we'll kind of maybe touch on what you need to consider whether the auto-enrolment scheme is better for that cohort of individuals.

And ultimately we view auto-enrolment as a really positive thing for the pensions industry. So this is going to bring more focus and pensions get more people talking about pensions, whether auto-enrolment or PRSA or group scheme is right for the individual. That's a different conversation. Totally. It's bringing pensions to the forefront. I've never seen so much coverage on pensions and by and the intention is that it will enroll 800,000 individuals who would never have an entry scheme at all.

And even this morning, I was in my coffee shop before, sorry, my local coffee shop before I got on the direct and there was a customer telling the coffee shop owner you're going to have to enroll everyone at a pension. And I was obviously delighted. Looking coffee shop owner to get you in that line that says. A lot about me, but automatically I was like, Oh my God. And I started telling him all about it and he but suddenly disinterested. But anyway, this is a really good thing.

It really is, yeah. And folks, as we go along today, obviously there's a couple of signs that there are facts and figures in here. Please do. I can see already there are questions coming in, which is great. But as questions pop into your head as we go through the information, please do pops up here and I'll put them to Sinead as we go along so we'll get into it.

Yeah, absolutely. So as we all know, the automatic enrolment retirement savings bill, it went through cabinet and it was at the end of March and it was published on 5th of April. As I was saying, it is lengthy, but it's really following the design principles that would have been published back in March 2022. So a lot of what was contained in that we're seeing in the bill. But I suppose just to why, why it's needed and we all really know why it's needed. Obviously pension coverage is really low amongst private sector workers. One in three have some sort of pension provision. We are the only OECD country without an auto-enrolment system.

So it's been a long time coming. We have been talking about it a long time, but ultimately most of those individuals who don't have pension arrangements will be reliant on the state state pension. That state pension as we know is 14 1/2 thousand. It's in and around that. But not everyone is even entitled to a full state pension. And those individuals, if they're working and then they're relying on the state pension, it's a real fall in their standard of living and it kind of brings them just above the poverty line. And that's obviously not a good place to be.

And you know, in even us within the pensions industry, what we really want is good customer outcomes. And everyone deserves the opportunity to be enrolled in a pension scheme and to be able to kind of give themselves that good second life and like a long fulfilled like financial security and keep these individuals independent.

So it's very important to replace with my reading is this, the government is saying this does not replace the state pension. This is in addition to it. Yeah, absolutely. And that's key and that's that's what the fear was always was. Will the state pension be gone? No, the government are very clear. The state pension is the bedrock of our pension system. But as we know, it just keeps you above the poverty line. And what this is the other moment is going to supplement that income in retirement and obviously maintain your standard of living.

The system as we know it is and and it still feels a little bit ambitious, but the intention is that it will be set up and ready for enrolment in quarter 1 2025. If it's not quarter, quarter, if it's not quarter one, I suspect it will be at some stage in 2025. But the aim, the target date is that quarter one.

So let's just kind of give a brief overview of the system as we see it based on the bill. So it is targeting as I said earlier 800,000 employees, those between age 23 and 60 with a gross pay of 20,000 or more across all employments. And it'll be also it's striking those who are not considered to be an exempt employment. And by what what I mean by exempt employment is individuals who are already a member of an occupational pension scheme or a PRSA where there is a contribution employer employee contribution going through payroll will be exempt and won't be auto-enrolled.

And this it will also include employees on probation, casual or part-time contracts for anyone on your payroll who fall into that category of age between 23 and 60 and earning more than 20,000. I'm sorry, if you don't mind, I might just repeat this because I can see there's a number of questions on this very point already. So if you are an employee and you don't have a PRSA or a pension going through payroll, you're basically in the net. Yeah, yeah, simple as. That yeah, absolutely. And you'll know like if if you like say my pay slip or use your pay slip and what's submitted to revenue, you'll see an employer and employee contribution. Once that's in place, you're not going to be. Enrolled so if you have your own individual PRSA on the side, you will be caught. Absolutely. So payroll is the key point there, the key. Point that's that's how they identify you and if there's nothing going through payroll, you will be automatically enrolled. So great, thanks.

It is excluding the self-employed as we know it's not that government want to exclude them, but it's too hard to capture and other auto-enrolment systems have tried to capture the self-employed. It's just the nature of the way they work and then they're paid later and their tax returns, they, they don't have a monthly or a weekly payroll. So that's why they can't be included those, it's obviously not including those who are turning. And as I said, it's not going to include members of occupational pension schemes or PRSAs where there is a, a contribution going through payroll individuals outside of those limits. So the 23 and 60 and the 20,000 threshold limits can opt in if they wish and if they do opt in, that's fine, then the employer has to match the contribution and the state will top up.

So one of the new things that was included in the bill that we hadn't seen before, whilst we knew there was going to be a central processing authority that would run the scheme, we've got a little bit more information around it. So it's going to be an independent body and it's called the National Automatic and National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority. And for the purpose of today, I'm going to call it the AE Authority. I'm not going to go through that because I'll probably stumble about that. And basically it is going to be an independent body. Eventually it'll start off in under the Department of Social Protection, but once they have it up and running, so it'll like once all the kind of governance process structures, everything is in place, then it will be fully independent. But at the outset it will be in under the Department of Social Protection, but it will look after everything to do with the auto-enrolment scheme.

So it will obviously look after the outsourcing, the like looking So it will obviously look after the outsourcing, the like looking after the tender for the investment managers at main fund accounting and it will do and it will look after that. Then it also will liaise with the employers around telling them what contributions to deduct, all that sort of stuff that could collect them. And then it will distribute them to the various fund managers to invest. Then it will allocate them to the employee accounts and this will all be done via an online portal. And that's how employees will be able to get all their information in terms of the disclosure, even like benefit statements, it will all be on that online portal. So an employee will log into that, they will see everything. It's a bit like and it's.

A responsible for the whole, the whole. State absolutely everything and and the way the employees will kind of operate or work with it is that they will log into their online portal and that's where they'll do fund switch, opting out, check their balances, all that sort of stuff. Ensure contributions are paid and and you know everything you can see typically that the pension scheme member would see. Yeah. So the compliance member interest obviously at the heart of the system like electricities of a pension scheme ensuring members benefits are being looked after and in time like they expected obviously to be significantly big and in and that will mean economies of scale and that will keep the cost down. And they're aiming to have an all in cost of 0.5% which is pretty low to be fair.

Shane, I might go back in a little bit because there's a lot of questions coming in on the the payroll issue and in particular, what if it's just the employee contributing? What if there's no employer contribution and and the opposite. So my sorry, I'll get you to explain what how you're exempted or not. Yeah. So in the bill, it does talk about an employer and an employee contribution going through payroll that will meet the standards, and that will happen by year 7. But from the outset, to get it up and running, the Department of Social Protection have been really clear. Once there is one of those contributions, either an employer or an employee, then at the outset, sorry, if there's an employer or an employee contribution going through payroll at the outset, then you won't be enrolled. But by year 7, they'll have these standards in place and the, the standards will mean then by year seven, we know it's 4.5% or 4.5% employee and those standards will need to be in place. And by year 7, an employer and an employer contribution meeting those limits will have to be going through payroll. And if they're not, you're going to be.

So this is get it up and running, Yeah, if there's an employee or employer contribution, you avoid it for now. But by year 7, by time it's full steam ahead you you have to have matrix. Yeah, and, and, and that gives employers also time to figure out their own pension schemes and make sure that, you know, they have like say if they had a, a pension scheme already in place where there was 3% employer, 3% employee, it gives them time to actually meet those standards and, and change. Those and in those seven years where it's building up to get to the four and a half, 4 1/2, is there a minimum level or is it just there is a contribution going through payroll and that's all they need? To see, but that that's all they see for the moment. That excludes you, but it won't exclude you forever. By year 7, you'll need to be contributing the minimum amounts based on year 7, which as we know is 4.5%.

OK, brilliant. Sorry, there was just a lot of questions on that. Yeah, and and it is. And it's not clear because like the bill does say employer, employee and that is the way it will be, but it's just to get it up and running. They're basically saying open like for the first six years once there's some form of contribution going through payroll employer, employee, that will be sufficient and you won't be automatically enrolled and. The last one before electric run, is that the salary range we we said in the previous slide that it's a minimum of 20,000. There's a question here about the total range was up to 80, but it's it's capped at 80. And that is, yeah. Absolutely. So an employer, if they have an employee who's earning 90,000 and say they're at year 7, they'll only have to put in 4.5% of the 80,000. So it's capped in terms of the. Contribution. That the employer will have to pay and the employee will have to pay. Brilliant. OK. Thank you.

So, and here it's just an infograph and it was sourced just from the design principal document and just showing you exactly how the auto enrolment authorities really want to work. So at a high level, you're looking at for employee state contributions be paid into the central processing authorities and then they invest the monies, allocate the funds and then it's all in one pension part and then at retirement, the employees then retires their benefits. So Simply put, that's all it is. There's nothing different in this at all. And it's, it's probably just a like it is, it is the exact same process as would happen, you know, here in standard for any of the other life accesses. But I just thought it was quite clear. I, I just thought it was clear to understand.

And the very first thing everyone asks and the lady in the coffee shop that was working asked me today, how much will I have to contribute? So this is the big thing. And so in year 1, you're looking at 300. So this is based on, as we know, in year 1, it's 1.5% of your gross salary. So employee pays 1.5%, the employer pays 1.5%, and then the state tops up by .5%. So if you're earning 20,000 to euro per annum, this is the amount that would be contributed in years one to three. So the employee yearly will be €300. That works out at €25 a month. And then obviously it's matched by the employer and then €100 by the state. So then it's up to 600, 100 then years 4:00 to 6:00, so that's 3%. So you're looking at €50 a month. And then 7:00 to 9:00, that's where we're at 4.5 percent, €75 a month. And then years 10 onwards, we know it's 6%. So it's 6% employer employee. And that's where you're looking at €100 a month. And it's calculated based on gross salary. So it's 6% of your gross salary, but it's slightly different for the auto enrollment scheme because that gross 1200 will come out of your net pay, whereas it's different in under the private pension tax relief system where it's calculated based on gross pay, but it comes after your gross pay. So it's.

Quite a distinction. So absolutely my rough maths. If you earn €100 and you say pay 20% to the government in terms of tax and I know it's very rough and AC goes to you contribution, it's calculated off to 100, but it's coming off the. The 80, Yeah. It costs you 80? Yeah. OK. So while it, so really the cost then is while 1.5 is coming off, the cost is actually closer to 2% because it's coming off your net. Yeah, exactly. So they are paying. So you are paying a little bit more. Yeah. And do you mind me asking, just on the top line there, the 303 hundred 100, the state contribution is based on the employee contribution only, not the employer. Absolutely. So that works out. So it's a 33% top up and it's the equivalent of 25% in tax relief. Yeah. Because as we know, the employer is a if. If the employer, for example, is a company, they can get their own tax relief themselves on their own contribution only, not the employee contribution. OK. Yeah. So the state. So when you're going down through the maths there, you look at the state you need to calculate the employee. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it's after 1\-2. So if you're looking at your term pluses, 400 is off to 1200.

And those bands, so there's a couple question on on the on the bands here. So one, it's where the AE system is as opposed to when you join us. So it's not year in year like it's yeah, yeah, yeah. The system is at 1.5. So then everyone goes to 1.5. Then the system goes to three, so everyone goes to. 3 So by 2035, if you're joining the AE system, it's six, it's 6%, so 6% employer, 6% employee and then you're 2%. Yeah. So you're not, not everyone is being scaled up. This is OK. It did. So this is just for employers. It's, it's phased in for employers so they can get used to, you know, adjust to the extra contributions that they have to pay over. And if someone sitting back and goes this is great if this suits me but actually I want to pay more than 1.5% please. At the access or at to begin with and then the first seven years that's not possible. You are restricted to the 1.5 and you can't go outside of those. However, like you obviously could take out an ABC PRSA, but the Department of Social Protections that in time they are going to consider it and they may allow that I think. So, so this kind of goes back to there are some quirks with this and they just have to work through. That's exactly it. They're still like even retiring your benefits, there's still a lot of things that need to be clarified around and certainly around the taxation of those benefits. But they will be in time clarified. And I think by year 7, we'll have a much clearer picture as to what it looks like.

OK, great. Thank you. And here is just an illustration which I took from the AE Design Principles. That was the document published back in May or March 2022 and they just were giving us an illustration based on an individual, Jack, who worked in retail and he was enrolled from the age of 25 to 66. It was 41 years and from the outset he was paying 6%, employer paying 6% in the state by two and he earns €25,000 per annum. This illustration assumes his salary will increase by 1.5% per year and it also assumes he is invested in the lifestyling funds. The lifestyling funds up until years prior to retirement assumes 4% per year growth and then from 10 years within 10 years to retirement it's 1.5%. But yes, so.

Relatively conservative over the lifetime 4% and then reducing that one point. Five, yeah, absolutely. But I think that the Department of Social Protection are doing it to be conservative, like, like they're not going to give like a really fated figure what you could get. So that if someone ever looked back and they were saying, oh, look, it's 107, like it's 375,000, but I only got 200,000. So they just need to be mindful that they can't exceed the expectations. Yeah, so, so here anyway, sorry, I think I've jumped on a little. So Jack is going to contribute himself over that lifetime. So it's 41 years, 84, a little over 84,000. The employer is obviously going to match that. The state then is going to top up by 28,000. So in total, over that was 41 years, Jack will have total pension savings of 196,000 and then it's nearly matched in investment returns. So it's 178,000 and that at retirement gives him 375,000. And this is the bit that you kind of go Jack, in reality, Jack would never have had a metro scheme. And if that's what happens and then like, and, and that means that Jack then can go on and live this really good kind of retired life, second life, he won't be living above the just above the poverty line and you know it. It just means that everyone like we're all living longer, as we know. And it just means he can live that adequate, like he'll have an adequate income in retirement. And that's what everyone needs. Yeah. And that's, and that's in addition to a state pet. Yeah. OK.

So the investment options and this is also another question we get a lot about. So as we know the authority, so that's the AE authority is going to appoint for investment management providers and they are tendering at the moment for that. So that is in way. So each of these are going to provide three different types of funds with three. Different types of risk levels, so the risk level being low, medium, high. So the low, the the the low for or the the low risk would be kind of government bonds or cash equivalent funds. The medium is also government bonds, but you have stock, Stock Exchange into sales and blue chip and then highest equities and property and then the appropriate risk level. And this is obviously very similar to to what we're in terms of lifestyling. If you have greater than 15 years for retirement, you're going to go into the high risk funds. If you're between 5 and 15 years, you're going into the medium risk funds. And then if you've less than five years, you're in the lowest funds. The default lifestyle fund. The default fund is. If the member doesn't obviously choose a fund, then you're looking at the lifestyle fund. So Sinead, there's a lot of questions on the funds and I know we're going to come on to that. So I might just avoid them just for a moment because it comes in but debt benefits in service and environment. Yeah. Is it the same? Yeah, absolutely. So death benefits are so they're the same as APRSA. So the full fund goes directly to the state on debt tax free. And so that that's the exact same. And then the retirement benefits at the outset, they're saying that it's actually just a fund will be paid out to the individual at retirement. However, in time, again, these standards will be put in place. It's just for the first seven years, there's never going to be big funds. So what you'll do is and like I suspect it will be a tax free lump sum and the remaining amount will be taxable. But that being said, it doesn't say anything about the tax side of things in this bill, but revenue will obviously guide us on that. It's a bit like a period saying part of it comes in under the Pensions Act, part of it comes in under revenue. So the tax side comes in under revenue. So that has to be clarified. But obviously at the outset to get it up and running, people aren't going to be retiring tomorrow. Yeah, that's something that they will do in time, but by. Premises get the system up and clarifies the corpus as we go down. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And so here's the investment of contribution. So it's, it's slightly different, but that's to what we're used to. So as I was saying, it's a range of three risk, three risk levels chosen by the member. And you can only, so if if you don't choose, you go into the default fund, as I said, which is the lifestyle fund. But if you decide to opt that out, you can actually only go into one of the funds. You can either go into the low risk fund, the medium risk fund or the high risk fund. You can't have a combination of them, which is but unusual. Strange. Yeah. So you're at one risk level and that's it. So you can't do a portfolio show so. You can't do 333334, which is what you would typically see. Yeah, which is unusual, but and that might change. That's what the bill is saying. It might change. But that must be like that's what they're providing at this stage and then the contribution. So the contributions then. So if we have all of of the, uh, employees going into say for example, low risk funds and it's a million in your own contributions, it's divided equally between the four providers that you'd have 250\-252\-5250 and they are. It's another interesting fund manager point of view. So, OK, so they all get the exact same share of the part from a fundamental point of view, which you couldn't say how does that incentivize them to outperform each other because they're getting the same amount. But my understanding is that this would be tendered every seven years. Yeah, there there is something like, yeah, absolutely. And if investment managers in the same way that like scheme trustees have investment managers as part of their, you know, group pension proposition, if they're not performing, they need to do something about it and they need to change like that kind of thing. But yeah, they, they will be up for tender, but they will be kind of reviewed in line with part of the AE like, like that's part of what the AE authority will do. It will review and make sure that the funds are doing. And that's interesting. So there is an absolute governance from the AED authorities. But when you look at the the four, four options, you can't choose. So you get the equal but also an over enrollment. Sorry, aren't giving advice on those funds. It's simply a case of you pick your risk and then you you get what you get and you don't get upset and such. Yeah. That's exactly it, yeah. So, and, and the thing about it is everyone who is in within like so everyone that's within the lower house funds, if they're paying the exact same contributions would have the exact same outcome. OK, that's it. So everyone in there saying the exact same. So it's 5% return, thousands of people in that part get the 5%, yeah. Exactly. So everyone, all workers within the same risk level get the exact same return. Which is an interesting angle, yeah. Like I've never, I've never seen that before either. But you know, and, and to be fair to the Department of Social Protection, whilst we are probably, as we keep saying, we're the last, the only OECD country without this sort of room. They are like taking kind of learns from, you know, other systems and seeing what went wrong, what would they change, all of that sort of stuff. So maybe it was something like that that came out of that. OK, great. Thank you.

Then they're obviously invested like they're pooled funds, so therefore they're invested anonymously. But then the authority then will hold the individual accounts like we would here and you know, they'll have the units, values, all of that sort of stuff. And in terms of the investments, the pension funds would have similar constraints to, you know, the Pensions Act, you know, regulation, markets, all of that sort of stuff. So it's similar in terms of the way the investment funds are structured. So the key features here are pot follows member. So within the auto enrollment system and this is what the Department of Social Protection will kind of outline as the three key features. So it's the pot follow member. We're all familiar with that. So you, an individual could be within the auto enrollment scheme for 40 years, but four different employers, they will always just have one pot. So there'd be 1, you know, revenue, probably payroll number aligned to us and you'll always have the wrong path. So you're not trying to, you know, calculate, go, oh, I want to hear from this one, but want to hear from that like like we do in the private pension system. But that makes sense. They're all within the scheme. You can also opt out in at various stages, which I'll go through on the next slide. And you can also suspend your contributions. And as we know it is a quasi mandatory scheme. So whilst you are all like, so we are all automatically enrolled and you've no choice in that. But actually after six months, in month seven and eight, you do have the option to opt out and you get a refund of your own contributions. The state contribution and the employer contribution will remain there as is and you will get that when you retire. And then you also have another option six months after contribution rate change. So that's within the 1st 10 years, obviously when it's gone from one point 5 to 3% to 4.5 to 6, you do have an option six months after a rate change to opt out and get a refund of your contributions as well. But the refund of contributions there is actually the amount between the old contribution and the new contribution, right? And then once you opt out at every stage like like you can obviously opt out, but every two years you will be automatically enrolled again. And then you can opt out again after, you know, month 6IN in month 7 and 8. And, and that's the way the whole process will go. You can also suspend your contributions, which means you just make them paid off and you don't take a refund of contributions. But you will also be automatically enrolled again every two years, so. So that's a real. So if you if you step back, they're just going to keep bringing it back. In and they're hoping that at some stage inertia will just kick in and you'll go OK and and you'll forget about it or the whole thing is you'll adjust to it. And like, you know, the UK would find that they're opt out like in the UK, they're also run still you can opt out after one month, which is quite soon because I think by month 7 you're kind of nearly adjusted to it. But in the first month you're kind of like someone might be quite annoyed and I like they haven't adjusted to this, you know, kind of their new take home pay. So they're quite likely topped out. But actually the rates in the UK are between like, I think 8 and 15%. So it's not it's not too bad. Like there is over 11 million people enrolled in the UK. So it it, it is a really good thing.

Just one, one small admin thing, if you don't mind our housekeeping thing with the level of questions coming in. See there's a huge amount of interest in this obviously, but we will be sending out a copy of the slides to everyone after the session. So the slides are under way to you. OK. So the payment of benefits and you just asked that question earlier. So it's drawdown. The drawdown is aligned to the state pension age, which as we know is currently age 66. You can't get benefits any earlier unless it's ill health, early retirement or on death. Ill health, early retirement as you know has to be medically assessed and then you'll get your benefits. So there. So there's no kind of drawing down your pension earlier. Like as you know if you're have left the service in a bio branch, you can draw down from age 50 or you know, even in a peer say from age 60 onwards. So this is aligned to the state pension age. So it's age 66, the prevailing pension and tax regulations will apply at the time and we'll see that by year 7 because the standards will be in place. And that mean they have the same choices right now for an annuity? Yeah. So, so it, it will be 25% I, I, it won't be salaried service, it'll be 25%. The options will be centered to appear say the member then can avail of the open market pension products. So they yeah, yeah, they can do that if they wish. But as I said earlier, the outset at the outside members can take the benefits as a lot. So that being and the reason being is that #1 standards in place, but also the funds will be very low. But once the funds become significant, they will have standards put in place for them. As I said earlier, the taxation is not clear, but it's that that's, that's a revenue thing. And we will get clarity on that, no doubt. And then as the system matures, they will again consider it's, it's, it's a bit like the contribution limits whether you can increase them. The consideration will be, you know, given into actually having drawdown options. So you might see like like a Vista Pura say it'll be in scheme drawdown or something. So you can just take your loan sum, leave your remaining fund invested that that might be something they'll consider. I'm not saying it will happen, but it is something that they will look at. Interesting.

Take care. If an employee is a member of an applicational scheme with employer contributions, can they add into the AE scheme as well and get? No, you can't. You. Can't be a member of both. It's one or the other, OK. And, and they're very clear on that. So the auto enrolment process and how the Department of Social Protection see it working. So I suppose and one of a lot of employers are asking how are they even going to identify these employees? Well, the way they will do it is through revenue data. And as like, so the way it would work even for the likes of Standard Life, we would submit to revenue payroll data every month based on when you pay wages. And in that data, you'll be able to see obviously whether someone has an employer or an employee contribution going through payroll. And that's where they'll be able to identify eligible employees that they'll be able to see your salary when their contributions are going through payroll. So if you're over 20,000, there's no salary or there's no pension contributions going through payroll, then that's when there will be a payroll notification like the software. So you'll be notified these five employees are eligible for the auto enrollment scheme and this is the amount that needs to be deducted and this is the amount that you need to pay and this needs to be paid over. So kind of the Department of Social Protection or, and it'll be the AE authority, they will be doing everything. So they'll be telling you who is eligible and they'll also be telling you the amount you need to deduct and pay over. So the employee doesn't really have to do anything except apply that payroll notification. So there's no Irish approaches to this. The net is, is quite clear and you need to make sure the contributions OK, Yeah.

And while we've covered off people getting into the system and a little bit about people getting out of the system, but the state pension now at 66, you can elect to defer that and get a higher payment of state pension. If you do that, how does it affect your AE? Can you still keep contributing or do? You even though after age 66 it. Just stopped. Yeah, OK, that's OK. Perfect. Sorry, so points to note sorry. So a pay reference. So it won't be apparently obvious for some individuals that they earn the 20,000. So there is a pay reference period to determine whether someone is eligible to join it. So it'll be kind of a look back 13 week. The AE authority will look back and it'll be based on the last 13 weeks pay. And if it's clearer then that you, the 20,000 is, is your gross salary, well then that's you. You'll be automatically enrolled. But as I said earlier, there's no minimum standard at the outset. And once an employer employee contributions paid is displayed on the pay slip, it's excluded. And, and, and then obviously in year 7, an employer and employee contribution must be in line with minimum standards. Yeah, so it must be. So by, by year 7, you'll have to have 4.5% employer, 4.5% employee contributions going out. And this was one that I think the next one is one that like obviously in Standard Life, we have a lot of kind of company director clients who are in PRSAS. But company directors as we know employee contributions aren't coming out through payroll. Nora. Nora. Check. In December, yeah, absolutely. It's the end of tax year, the company tax year, we get a check in. So a company director who is a registered employee, which they, they, they all typically are, will have to have something going through payroll at the outset and then in order to be excluded. Now we might get further clarity around that, but I can't see any other way that it will be avoided because the Department of Social Protection or the AIA authority will identify you through payroll. And if there's nothing going through, I think then. So if you're in, just to be clear on this, if you're a company director and you contribute, say you write a check at the end of every year, say 50,000, then go straight into your peer essay. Now if if you continue to do that, you'll be caught in AE. So what you need to do is set up a minimum contribution on a monthly basis going forward. So if that's if that's €100 a month coming out payroll into payer, say you don't go into AE yeah. And you're. Going to have to do that otherwise in the automatic, right? OK.

And I suspect there will be kind of further clarity around, you know, even say that company director who might be at the 2 million and they don't want to contribute anymore. We'll have to get certain clarity around that. Is there a way that they can contact AE authority and just say I'm not funding anymore because I've reached the threshold, the mass threshold, that sort of thing. So we will get clarity around that.

So employers, what does it actually mean? So the key here, and this is what the authority are very clear upon the minimum. So for an employer, it'll be a minimum administration. They really don't have to do anything bar because they only have to do the bare minimum. So contributions as we know are going to be calculated automatically by the payroll software. So they're going to tell you the excluded employee of the, the employees that need to be enrolled and then give you the exact contribution levels that need to be deducted and permitted. And they're going to, as I said, identify the eligible individuals. So straight away, you don't really have to do anything except apply those payroll notification and the payroll notification that you get from them. But the employer really like will have legal applications in under this bill in that they will have to do this. They can't. And, and they're there, I say there'll be some very creative employers. I can see the questions about Irish creativity coming through here already, but how we might how companies might decide to. And that wouldn't be something that we will probably discuss. Of course not. But one of the questions here relating to that kind of capture, there's a number of them is that if there's a private peer and say and then they that's private, it has to go through payroll. That's that's the rule of thumb here. If it's not coming through payroll, you're going to be all the rules. Yeah, like, because they're like, and I suppose from the Department of Social Protection's perspective, they wouldn't be able to identify you otherwise. Yeah. And the follow on from my question or part of that question is they could set up a private peers A and then not contribute to a few years down blind. But the way the system is set up is that it's going to be scaled up by year 7, It's going to be 6 and 6 by employer, employee year. 74.5. Sorry, 4.5 and that's that's if it's not there. That's the minimum. That's the minimum standard. Yeah, yeah. And we'll get further clarity around that and how that's implemented and the peer and and how yeah, like, but but the AE authority or will need to see this 4.5 employer, 4.5 by yourself and 4.5% employee being paid over towards that PSA and and.

And sorry, now a quick one, something quite an obvious one that I hadn't thought about. What about something on overtime and their salaries fluctuate? Is it always a percentage of the pay in that month? Yeah, I think so. OK. So it's not based on their their base salary, it's whatever's going through. Salary. That's that that appears on your pay slip. OK, so if you have overtime, let's make up your your pay doubled, then your contribution is going up that. I think so. OK. It hasn't been clarified but but from what I understand it's they will look at it that gross salary on your pay slip. That's the number, yeah. And that's my understanding of it. OK, great. Thank you.

OK. So for employers the benefit of it is that they don't have to set up a scheme or pay for the set up hours. They don't have to administer it. So like and, and, and these are obvious ones. And I think the good thing obviously for an employer, it is phased in. It's 1.5% initially and there is time to adjust. So over the, by the time you get to 10 years, you're kind of used to it. I mean, it, it, it allows you to plan budgeting, that sort of thing. And as well as that, like you're ensuring that your employees are looked after, like they work with you until age 66 and then they go from only 40,000 just to relying on state pension. The fact that they now have this supplementary pension is a really good thing for them. So and then as we know, if you are like if the employer for example, if it's a company and an entity, well then any contributions that they make towards the arrangement is fully taxed deductible, OK. So it might. So it's not going to cost as much as you think.

And I suppose when you're planning for AE and that's the question a lot of advisors are going to get from that employer, it's kind of like what do we consider and, and just just like it's, it's kind of sitting down and, and advisors are saying to me like what does that mean for me? What should I do? And they will be asking those questions. So I suppose here is some of the considerations budgeting as I just mentioned earlier. So they'll need to see how much is it going to cost me in the business straight off. That's going to be the biggest issue, current pension coverage in the workplace. If there's none, well then maybe ultra enrollment is the solution for you. But if you do have an occupational pension scheme like this is where it gets a little bit trickier because as we know it is a blanket kind of the tax relief works out at like the top up rate, it's blank at 25% no matter whether you're in 20,000 or 80,000. Whereas the private pension system, the private pension system obviously tax relief is like your marginal rate. So if you're earning over 40,000, you're going to be in that higher tax rate. So you'll get a tax relief at 40%. So it makes more sense like you're you're better off straight away by being in your.

Private, it's an interesting point. So we have, we obviously have pension legislation, we have a coming in, but advisors need to figure out how to position this. So from a, from a position point of view, a we think is, is a very positive thing for, for a very positive debt. It gets conversation about retirement, but more of a focus on that. So, so that's good. However, if, if you're choosing between the two routes, is it as a clear cut as if you're on a marginal rate, you're better off on a group scheme. And sorry, a group peer would say or an occupational scheme. If you're on to 20%, if that's your marginal rate, you're better off in AE because you get a 5% kicker, simple as that. And. And so, and then so, so an employer and, and the, the a, the DSP are very clear that they will run in parallel. So the AE scheme will run in parallel to any sort of existing arrangement. So if an employer has, you know, an occupational pension scheme or a group PSA in place for their existing employees, but they have standard rate taxpayers, they might be better off having them in at the outset in the auto enrollment scheme. And then once they start earning over 40,000 and they are paying higher rate tax, they should suggest to them you can actually move into the PSA because it's more beneficial, but the employer won't be able to choose that. B. Once the employee is enrolled in that alter enrollment scheme, the employee then has to opt out and then enter into the then become a member of the PSA or the group scheme. So it's a little bit tricky. And that means that employers have to monitor all the time their employees, what they pay and the tax rate that they're on. So it will be and I suppose it's just putting a process in place and it's, it's just been mindful of us. And then if there is an eligibility. As we know with a lot of pension schemes, sometimes you have to be working with an employer for six months before they allow you to become a member of the scheme. If that's still in place, all of those individuals within the first six months will be automatically enrolled into the auto enrollment scheme. So you need to, if there is a waiting period, you need to consider that. And maybe, and if you want all your members to be part of your occupational pension scheme, well then remove that eligibility. I'm sorry, remove the the waiting period. And like a big thing is that you'll also have to communicate with your employees because if employees have never paid pension contributions before, they will also have this will impact. Them this will impact, yeah, it it did create the lower levels of salaries because this has a bigger impact. Yeah, it's, it's disproportionate because yeah, like as as we were saying, it is a bigger part of their take home pay and their discretionary spend and it will like it will, it will, it will make a difference. So they will be not rightly disgruntled, but at the outset they're not going. To It's a new charge. It's a new tax charge, but once they get to retirement, they'll be really happy that they have it. And I don't think anyone got to retirement and they did a good pension fund replacement, sorry that they did it. Most people, when they get to retirement, they're sorry they didn't pay more into a pension. And that's the reality. We all get to age 6566 and people are like, I just don't want to work anymore. Yeah. Or they want to, you know, reduce their hours down. I don't want to work full time, you know. So nothing to get the age 66 that that really. I hear you, I hear. You.

So these are the expected timelines then and the Department of Social Protection, I was on a webinar last week and these were the timelines that they outlined. So the enactment of the legislation, we were looking at quarter 2/20/24, yeah, like that it is ambitious, but it, it could happen again, quarter one, quarter 2, as we know the administration is going to be outsourced and the investment service is going to be outsourced. We're so we're looking at quarter one, quarter 2 for that tender process to be finalised. That might take a bit longer, who knows. Quarter two, quarter three, that's the establishment of the auto enrollment authority. Again, that all seems doable assuming that the legislation is enacted of course. And then targeting quarter 1/20/25 to go live on the 1st contributions to be deducted. So we're talking March in March, yeah, like if it isn't quarter one, I do think it'll be quarter two or three, so. It's happening next year. Yeah, I, I feel that it will. And you know, it feels like, as I said earlier, it's within reach. It's at an advanced stage. We've never known as much about it as we do right now. And the fact that there is processes in place, how the, you know, the software and the payroll software, how they're going to identify all these individuals, that seems quite clear now. And I, I, yeah. So it's, it's absolutely going to happen within, I'd say, I'd say within the first six months of 2025.

OK. So for employees, what does it mean? So you can often, as I said earlier, if you're outside those thresholds and that's not a bad thing. Probably there isn't going to be a massive cohort that will do that. I suspect pot follows member as I mentioned earlier as well. So they'll always just have that one pot in place in under the auto enrollment scheme, transfers in and out are not permitted. So this relates to your, if you have other private pension arrangements, I, I don't see that as a bad thing. Keep your ultra enrollment there and then you have your private pension arrangements test online portal. This will obviously be brand new and I think they're using either the the companies that they have that are tendering our UK companies that would have been involved in our enrollment in the UK and I think there's a South African company as well. So these guys, these companies will be like have really slick systems and the online portable will be like really user friendly, easy to use, do everything you need to do. You'll be able to access all the information. So that's how it will operate and that's how and that's remembers Will, that's that's how, that's, that's where members will go. That would be their first port of call. As I was saying the shared costs amongst members, they do think at some stage like it's targeting 800,000, they'll get 800 thousand of those 800,000 employees. I suspect about 200,000 of those are probably higher tax rate individuals. So they shouldn't really be in the AE scheme at all because they're straight off the tax relief is is less lesser. So they may go into the private pension system and then the AE scheme will probably have 5 to 600,000. That's my feeling without knowing too much about it. And then advice that they were at retirement and and this, this to me is, is a big thing. As I was saying about Jack, the illustration earlier, you know, Jack who earns 25,000 all of a sudden will never have a fund like this, but gets to retirement and he has a fund of nearly 400,000. Yeah. So advice is crucial there to my mind. And that's something I think needs to be considered more because people like Jack and no, look, there's plenty of people, they're not equipped to know what to do with 400,000 or, you know, they might take their tax free lump sum, then they get an ARF, but they can retire. They, they can take that all out at once if they want. And it's just things like that. I, I just think advice is still something that these individuals will need. I think everyone needs advice. If I'm being asked me too.

And so of enrolment, the implications for existing arrangements, so as I was saying and and the Department of Social Protection are really clear on this, existing arrangements are going to run in parallel with this. Standards will be in place by year 7. So it's at that stage there needs to be an employer employee contribution 4.54 point 5 going through payroll, as we know the contributions are going to be 14% after 10 years. So it's 6/6 and then state tops up too. That's a significant contribution, yeah. 14%. Yeah, it's and it's something actually that the UK would have been their learn from it. Their, their all insurance 8% and while coverage is really good, they feel adequacy isn't enough. So, so they feel that it should have been higher. So, and, and that's the learn we've we've taken from the UK that it's, it just isn't high enough. And the the impact of that of course is if someone is joining the workforce in 10 years time, they're immediately going to start off on a 14% contribution from from day one. Yeah, which is good, yeah. It is significant, but it is good. Yeah, OK. And then the contributions as we know are are fixed. So no voluntary contributions are allowed. So for existing arrangements, obviously you know, you can make, you know, you can make ABC's within that scheme and stuff like that. So you just have to like for the auto enrollment scheme, eventually you might be able to do it. But yeah, except no, so and then obviously schemes wait waiting periods. As I was saying earlier, if you have an occupational kind of scheme with a waiting period of six months, those individuals are going to be automatically enrolled in this scheme. So you just need to consider that in terms of your own existing occupational pension scheme. And then again, the higher tax relief rate, which we we discussed earlier, anyone who is paying a higher rate of tax shouldn't really be in the auto scheme at all. As we know, there's a flat rate of 25%. But if you're a standard rate taxpayer, yeah. So I might just jump on that actually, John, because there's a question here just simply pure as a versus over enrollment. And it comes down to this, doesn't it? So if you're at a marginal rate, sorry, if you're at the marginal rate, it's pure as a, if you're at the standard rate over enrollment makes sense. Yeah, ABS absolutely. And then moving between regimes and we still need clarity around that, but it will be the employee will have to decide upon that. So the employee could be in the like if, if they're paying standard rate 20% tax, they are probably going to be in the scheme at the outset. But how does that operate between moving between the two arrangements the employee so that they probably have to set up a PRSA or become a member of the a group scheme. If, if, if that's what the employer has in place and it's just how that works between moving between regimes. But I suppose the key is that once the auto enrollment authority can see that there is contributions now going into appearance A that they're obviously making them paid up in under the auto enrollments.

And then lastly appearance A versus auto enrollment. We, we couldn't not talk about the PRSA and we love a PRSA here at Standard Life. And it was one question that when I, I logged into Department of Social Protection auto enrollment webinar last week, the one question that they were getting in and they said this is probably the most common question is should an employee stop paying into their current PRSA and automatically enrolled. And I suppose I just thought it was worth mentioning it and again, and we've discussed it quite, quite a bit here. There are a few factors, the comparison of contribution levels and actually I saw an article recently, it was only last week in yesterday, the day before in in the newspaper and where it was saying that if an employee was paying say €50 into their PRSA through payroll and that's it, no employer contribution, they wouldn't be automatically enrolled into until year 7. But actually they might be worse off because they're missing out on the 1.5 employer contribution. And that as we know is going up to 3%, you know, in, in, in year 456. So they are actually missing out because they won't be automatically enrolled because there is some form of contribution and it might be only €50 a month. So you need to be like so and it might take seven years for them to be automatically enrolled, but they have missed out on those contributions from the employer in year 123456, if that makes sense. So that yeah. So again, consider the tax relief system, which is more beneficial. Fun choice, fun choice, contribution flexibility. It depends. If you know, if you're interested in bonds and they want a different choice to what's available in under the auto norm scheme, well then PSA is probably better. And then the flexibility of contributions, if you want to pay more, you're allowed to do that in under the PSA. Obviously it's restricted in under the EE and Shane. When I'm sorry, if and when a company sets up an occupational scheme, will they right now they don't have to match the AE contributions, but will they have to match the AE contributions into the future? Absolutely. OK, so this will be standardized. So when it gets to six and six occupational schemes that have to be 6 and six are, they'll be caught in the. Exactly, exactly. And and that's and. We need clarity around what will happen there, but they'll probably get some. An employer will probably get some sort of a notification to say the correct contributions aren't going in or being deducted. And that's clarity you'll get. And those standards will be developed in conjunction with the pensions authority by yourself. But yeah, I think it's really kind of clear. Exactly. But you.

you can't be contributed to both. OK. So, so you shouldn't be in private PRSA and claiming tax relief and then also in the ocean workers and getting that state top up. It's one or the other. So if you go into the AE scheme, let's say halfway through the year, you'll get tax relief on half the contributions of the PRSA. Exactly. AE scheme, you get the 25% top up because there's no direct tax relief. Yeah. You, you, you can't like you'd be gaming the system and that's certainly not what AE is, right? OK. Yeah. And that's kind of it really. Yeah. And, and again, like financial advice and obviously that's where you guys all come in, should be sought. It's not straightforward. There is a lot to consider. Having two schemes in parallel is, is tricky. I think eventually we, we, we, we'll have it figured out, but it's new and it's, it's, it's just something we need to get our heads around. But that's why it's really clear like that employers will be looking to to you guys for financial advice, I've heard. That and there there are there's been hundreds of questions. So, so thank you so much. We've been trying to group them together and run by throw one or two more. Actually, if an employer, sorry, if someone moves to a new employer, they don't go back to the beginning. It's in it's whatever the system has acted in there. So if the system's at 3, then they when they move over and then they're at 3:00. Yeah, yeah. So, and by 2035, yeah, it'll always be 6%. OK. Regardless. So it's a very standardized. Yes. So within the 1st 10 years it's phased in, but from 2035 onwards it's always going to be 6/6 and then stays down to OK. Brilliant. And go back to your point about while advisors can't participate in the AE market from a a Commission of trail. Point of view. However, our our guidance is employers will need advice on this and this is an opportunity for advisors to sit down with employers and look at the options. And the options are a group, you would say a group occupational. Scheme. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and yeah, so advisors can either like and and they'll be able to to say from the outset what what's the most obvious one, but actually might be it. It might be that employers need to operate both in parallel. So they might have to have. Yeah. Because they're going to have a range of employees that are both standard rate taxpayers and higher rate taxpayers. And if that's the case, you have to look as to what's the best for employees, yeah. And I'm going to go back to this one and, and we might wrap it up with this one, Shane, but it's, it's around. If someone has a private PSA done by direct debit mandate, will they get gotten a? It's a it keeps coming back to if you're not going to payroll, you're going to get caught. Yeah, absolutely. That's how I. Think maybe getting caught is the bad way of saying it, But you will be. You'll be included in a. Yeah, you're you're deemed eligible and you'll be automatically. Enrolled, yeah, brilliant. OK folks, I'm, I'm conscious of time it's about two minutes to 11 and by by the looks of all these questions, there's a lot of interest in this area which is fantastic. We will be sending out the slides to everyone and of course Sinead and and the Retirement Solutions team are available for any other questions, as is your business manager. Just a quick reminder in terms of the spring webinar series, obviously today was Retirement Solutions looking at our enrolment. Next up, we have Investment Solutions and then we have the Second Life webinar as well. So if you haven't had a chance to register for those sessions, please do. You'll see them on our website of our contact your business manager. So for myself and Shane, thank you so much for taking the time to come and join us today. I sent the slides that we sent out with plus a copy of your CPP and look forward to seeing you in the next one. Take care, bye bye.

Morning everybody. Sorry for the for the short delay in getting this morning's event started. It's always when you least expect that at least once, at least once you run into technology problems. Thanks for taking the time to join this morning's webinar. It may be a little bit shorter than we had hoped. We can't get one of the speakers online at the moment, so we're just going to reorder the subjects this morning. And we're going to actually start with our Global Smaller Companies funds. I'm joined this morning by Kirsty Desson, who's the Portfolio Manager of the Global Smaller Companies Fund. And Kirsten is going to be touching on why the case for smaller companies remain strong despite the turbulence that we've experienced in smaller companies sector over the past number of years. If you do have any questions for Kirsten, please do submit them online and through the Q&A tab and we'll do our best to get to answer the questions that come through. I am hoping that we will have Lizzie Galbraith online by the time we finish talking about smaller companies and I suppose usually uncertainty in markets. It's quite timely to take a look at the geopolitical outlook in terms of the volatility that it's causing across investment markets year to date. Before I do hand over to Kirsty, I've got a bit of good news, which is always nice to be able to announce and it is a reduction to some of the AMC's across a number of our once. So if we look at our app to smaller companies range first, we've listened and we have reduced the cost. You can now access all of the smaller companies, the active range on our platform at 1:30, OK, which means you can access from as low as 80 basis points. You can AMC range their 80 basis points up to 1.3% depending on the allocation rate given to your client and the level of Commission that you take. We have also reduced the AMC's across our two, I suppose, property funds. Global Real estate is reduced down to 130 also as is the global refund. So quite significant reductions coming through across those three funds, which will ultimately benefit long term investors that are in the funds. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Kirsty. Let's talk about smaller companies. Kirsty, I'll hand it over to you.

Great. Thanks very much and thanks everyone for joining the call today. And I think it's a really timely question at the moment as people are grappling with what the outlook is going to be is certainly uncertain. And you may be thinking about why now is the right time to be allocating towards small cap. Well, let me just take you a step back and if we could move on to the first slide. I just want to remind you of what. So if you just flip forward to the chart showing the three-year rolling return of MSCI world versus small cap versus large cap, I just want to remind you of how small caps have performed versus large caps going back over the last 20 plus years. And what you can see is that small caps have actually dominated over that. With the exception of the more recent times when we've seen the emergence of what were once called Fang stocks, more recently the MAG 7 as they have taken centre stage. And with the exception of possibly Microsoft, I think we're now coming to a point where that extraordinary growth that we've seen and the return profiles are now being questioned. And we can see that the particularly given where valuations are, there has been some moderation in that outperformance of those MAG 7 stocks. And if we move on to the next slide, I just want to how distorted index returns have been over the last few years. And I'm just going to give you a moment or two to think in your own head as to those stocks that have outperformed the most. And in fact, you may be surprised to know that if you were to combine the global large cap and global small cap indices together and looked at the top 100 performing names, in actual fact almost 9 out of 10 or certainly 8 out of 10 of those names are actually small cap stocks. I think this speaks to two things. One, it speaks to the concentration of performance that we've seen in a small handful of large cap names. And at the same time it also highlights not only the strength but the breadth that we see in small Cap universe. So if we go on to the next slide, I just want to go back to that question around, well, why now? And I think one of the key reasons, one of the why an allegation to small caps is attractive is the diversification benefit that you get from investing in small caps. And here we've just shown the geographic diversification using the US as an example. So the weighting of the US in small cap indices is just over 50%, whilst in the large caps is now risen to almost 2/3 of 66% of the large cap Universe is dominated by the US. But it's not just geographic diversification that we get in small caps. Sector weights are also meaningfully different, particularly around IT and industrial weightings. What this means is that the indices perform at different times and so having an allocation to small cap alongside a large cap orientated portfolio can be very complementary for investors. Now on the next slide, I also just wanted to flag the performance of small caps that you see post interest rate cuts. Obviously this evening the market is waiting for the latest update from the FOMC. You've seen very publicly Jerome Powell is under a lot of pressure to cut rates. To be honest it my view is that the Fed will will not be pre emptive. We may have to wait and see how the US economy unfolds over the next 6-9 months. However, if we are were to see interest rate cuts coming through, this would be beneficial to small caps and whilst this is not the only trigger for small cap outperformance, it would certainly be a helpful catalyst in terms of small cap outperformance. So that is something to also bear in mind as we go through the rest of the year. Now why would you invest in the Aberdeen Smaller Companies Fund? And Marie, if I could ask you to just move on to the next slide. Yep, as many of you know, having been invested in an Aberdeen smaller companies funds, Aberdeen has a very experienced and very well resourced team of small cap specialists based out of the Edinburgh office. From Edinburgh, we run our global, European and UK small cap funds and I believe many of you may have met Andrew Paisley who's head of the team who runs our European product or Abby Glennie, the deputy head of the team who runs our UK products in the past. We also benefit enormously from the great pool of talent that Aberdeen has around the world running our regional small cap teams in the US, emerging markets, Asia X Japan and in Japan. At any time we're able to tap into the thoughts, company meets, on the ground research that these teams produce and together that gives us an incredible investment insight across all of these teams. At Aberdeen, we share a focus on bottom up investing, investing for the long term and searching for quality amongst all the stocks that we look at. Talking on quality, let me remind you what our investment philosophy is and this is shown on the next slide. If we could just move on, great. So the investment philosophy has been in place for many years now. We have the same philosophy across our global UK and European small and midcap funds. It's been proven to work over time and it's centred around these three core characteristics, quality, growth and momentum. And very simply the reasons why we drill into these three areas relatively straightforward. So quality, we know that risk is very much concentrated at the lower end of the benchmark in names that are either loss making, highly cyclical, newly listed, no track record. And so we are looking for companies that exhibit really strong quality characteristics and we're looking to partner with these companies for the long term. And by doing so, it's proven that we can enhance the risk reward characteristics for our clients. Secondly, growth small cap asset class by its nature is a growth asset class. We are capturing stocks in the early stage of their development and holding them as they build up and move into the mid cap and large cap universe. One of the reasons why small caps have outperformed large caps over the long term is because of the superior growth that small caps exhibit. Hence why we focus on growth, particularly sustainable growth. And the last factor is momentum. Now, if you believe that markets are efficient pricing mechanisms, in order for share prices to move, we need change. And what drives change is up with earnings or upwards or downwards earnings momentum. So when we're analysing companies, we're always looking for stocks where we can see scope for upwards earnings revisions. And that has been a key driver of performance over the last few years. Now let me let me move on and give you a little bit more colour about how we're positioned for the markets that we see going ahead. In a broad sense, we are currently underweight the US, We have a domestic tilt in the portfolios and we have a bias towards I think defensive growth at the moment. And these three holdings that I've highlighted here are three of our top ten stocks. GTT in particular has been in the fund for the last three years. The other two are are more recent holdings, but all of them give you a sense of the structural growth trends that underpin all of our holdings. So GTT to begin with is actually French, not not German. I think management would be a bit upset about that, but it is a French listed company that has developed technology for LNG to be transported safely around the world. We bought into this stock at the outbreak of the Ukraine war and since then we've seen a very sharp acceleration for LNG as an alternative source of fuel. It's very clear that we are seeing the need for greater energy security around the world and alternative sources of fuel. LNG is a cleaner fossil fuel and as well as that we're seeing the applications of LNG broaden out. So For these reasons, we think that the long term growth story in LNG is very much underpinned and GTT is a key player in that market as it has 100% global market share for the membranes that it develops to allow LNG to be transported.

Bake Current on the other hand is the stock that you see in the middle. We've tracked this name for a number of years and we finally bought into it in the middle of last year. It is a Japanese provider of digital and IT consultancy. This is an area of again structural growth in Japan. The IT and digital industry has been very much under invested in Japan and we're now seeing catch up with the levels that we're seeing elsewhere. On top of that, it's very well documented that Japan is facing a severe labour shortage which is forcing companies now to become much more efficient in the way in which they operate. Hence, there's a very strong take up of Bay Currents consultancy services. On top of that, you may well have read about corporate reform that we're seeing in Japan. And indeed Bake Current has been very proactive in paying back, giving back excess cash to shareholders and for that the share price has been rewarded.

The last company I want to just flag to you is Encompass Health and this has been a more recent acquisition for the funds. We added this in at the end of last year. What Encompass Health do is they are the the market leader in the US for critical care facilities outside hospitals. So much like what we're seeing in the UK and in Ireland is the increasing burden on health services as populations age. And so the government is very much pushing towards reducing healthcare costs by moving people out of very expensive high cost hospitals and into these alternative care facilities. And Encompass Health is the market leader in terms of providing quality care for intensive patient rehabilitation facilities. Again, much like Bay Current and GTT, we see this as a structural growth story in a name that we can invest in for many years to come. What I'm pleased to say is that if you move on to the the next slide, this focus that we've seen on bottom up stock picking on finding these winners where there are very clear long term structural growth stories underpinning the outlook for these businesses has led to very healthy performance in the funds year to date And in fact right now over one year. And I'm pleased to say that our three-year performance has improved meaningfully as the style factors have also improved. So we believe that the fund is very well positioned as we move into this period of global uncertainty and we continue to focus on finding these bottom up gems that can help diversify our clients asset allocation.

Kirsty, can I can I jump in there and just ask a couple of questions on the performance, if that's OK? The the fund had a very strong year last year. It's had a very strong year to date this year. Is that predominantly down to stock selection? Is it down to regional selection, particularly the underway to the US or is it down to your your style buyers with growth? What's really length of deal with their performance here?

Yes. So principally it has been driven by very strong bottom up stock selection and particularly these three names that I've flagged here have all outperformed very nicely over the last year or so. We are seeing outperformance of our Japanese names, which tend to be domestically focused. And so they are seeing not only a performance as they're exempt from tariffs, but they've also seen an appreciation because of the yen. That as allocation towards currencies like the yen is certainly helping as it is under way to the US now under way to the US dollar. But the principal driver of returns has been bottom up stock picking.

Brilliant. And that underweight to the US, correct me if Moran was initiated last year or last year? We've always had a slight underweight in the US, partly because we deliver a significant amount of alpha in other geographies where we've got a really strong research team. Having said that, the the US underweight has grown slightly. We're currently around 7% underweight. We want to keep it between 5 and 10% underweight at this point in, in a then the very much as a bottom up driven performance as opposed to a pure factor risk. And if we were to see say in the towards the end of this year or at some point in the second-half the US being more proactive about cutting rates, we wouldn't want to be too underweight the US market at that point. So we are incubating a number of stocks that are low weighting in the US with a view that should the market turn towards the end of the year, we would be able to dial up some of that exposure. Thanks. Thank you.

Great. And there's one final slide, which just reminds you of the the reasons why global small cap provides a very attractive complement to investing in large cap names. Play song. I'm not sure whether you're seeing any more questions coming through in your inbox. There is there are a couple of questions coming through Kirsty in, in terms of interest rate cuts in the US particularly what what's your view do you think what happened? So my, my personal, well, I think there's two scenarios that we could see playing out. On the one hand, there's a slight conundrum in terms of the labour markets in that it's politically frowned upon to be seen to be firing lots of staff at the moment. So companies are retaining staff. At the same time with the borders being closed, it's made it very difficult for companies to let go of of staff. So we have this slightly unusual position in the US, which has typically been a very much a hiring a firing market whereby we are seeing that company, the outlook is slowing, guidance has been cut quite dramatically and a number of companies are actually withholding guidance. At the same time, labour markets have actually been holding up and that prevents quite a difficult picture for the Fed. If we continue to see this dynamic playing out, then my view is that it will be very hard for the Fed to cut and we'll continue to see a long slow slide in the US. What I think would actually be more favourable for markets would be if we were to see a much sharper downturn in the US, which would then allow the Fed to cut rates sooner and and by a sharper degree to to really reactivate markets and that could lead to a more V shaped recovery. What's very clear is that there is money on the sidelines for CapEx. Since the third quarter of last year, our companies have actually been telling us that they're taking a wait and see approach. They're holding off actually ahead of US elections because they weren't sure what the outcome was going to be and that has continued. So company sheets are actually relatively healthy. We are seeing debt being paid down by by US corporates and hence when I think when we do start to see interest rate cuts coming through, then we could see quite a sharp recovery in, in the US. So that's so we have these varying scenarios of what may happen, but a lot depends on really the the labour market and the shape of that going forward. OK, which remains quite strong actually surprisingly. OK. There's an interesting question coming in here given the given the scenario that we're in at the moment, the tariffs, OK and and I suppose the very strong performance of the Global smaller Companies Fund has had a year to date. Do you see that performance levelling off? And the reason that I'm asking this is because the President submitted this question has said, has the fund performed relatively strongly due to the fact that a lot of companies are are front loading imports to the US for exports out of Europe and the rest of the world into the US, which means earnings will come back. So I think you've touched on a very good valid point in that I don't think we'll get a true picture of the demand scenario until possibly May or June, which is when we'll start to see that front loading levelling out and have a clear idea of how companies are actually going to share that tariff burden between suppliers, brand companies and then consumers. Having said that, I, I don't think that's been the only driver of small cap performance year to date. We have seen companies that are less exposed to tariffs outperforming and those that do have tariff uncertainty underperforming. But I think even if we were to see the current status of tariffs being imposed, that would be imply about a 16% of tariffs on the US, which by some economists estimates suggest the US could still go into a recession. So we at the moment we are seeing markets rebounding from a technically oversold level, particularly as as Besson is doing his best efforts to appease markets by playing down these tariff talks. But essentially as we work through the tariff implications, it will still be broadly negative for the US market and ultimately the consumer either later this year or into next year will have to bear the burden of that. So think we was we're seeing a small bounce recover and markets ultimately I think the the shape is still downwards as we go into the second-half of the year. And that should play very well to the strengths that we have in the global small cap funds, particularly around stocks being driven by their own independent growth initiatives and by the fact that the portfolio has a slightly more domestic tilt than national tilt. That's brilliant. Thanks for that. OK. There are a couple of questions that have come in that I'm not going to ask you, Kirstie, the more on the geopolitical side that I'd hoped I would have been able to get Lizzie to answer. But I think it's safe to say that fair to say the outlook for smaller companies is still strong, OK, Best approach to take is have a globally diversified portfolio when you're looking for exposure to to the small cap space and around about a 10 to 15% allocation within the portfolio is what we generally talk about when we're talking about allocations to smaller companies. So for those who submitted questions that I haven't answered, I will come back to you on that. OK

Just to confirm, the AMC is reducted, the AMC reductions across the smaller companies range and the property funds are for new and existing customers, OK. So it's not just for new flows of community, it benefits existing customers as well. So folks, I'm sorry it's a little bit shorter than what we had planned. You can't do a lot about technology sometimes. But we will look to recently schedule the geopolitical aspect of this morning's webinar. It would have been a very, very interesting chat and to have what Lizzie saw. I'll do my best to get that that arranged over the next week or so. Christy, thank you very much for joining and I hope to speak to you again soon. Long may the continued strong performance of global smaller companies continue. OK. Thanks, folks.

 

Good morning, everybody, and welcome Tim to this morning's Vanguard Market Outlook webinar. It's great to see so many of you taking time out of your Diaries this morning. I do hope you find this morning's session of benefit. It's the first investment webinar that we've had and this year. And I'm delighted to be joined by Monique Deer, who most of you will be familiar with if you've logged into these regular quarterly updates that we do with Vanguard. Monita is the head of multi assets, multi assets specialism with Vanguard and Monit will be taking us through Vanguard's most recent market outlook. I do suspect that with Trump Power that this is going to be a very interesting year in terms of markets, economics and geopolitics. Today's session shouldn't take any longer than 30 to 35 minutes, OK Depending on the level of questions that do come in, we have applied for CPD, so we will follow up with CVD confirmation once finalized. Please do submit any questions that you have via the Q&A tab on screen. In terms of the agenda for today, I'm going to just touch very briefly on the performance of our funds throughout 2024 and then I'll hand it over to Monit and we'll finish up with AQ and a session at the end of it.

So if we first look on the next slide there at our stand alone funds, it will come as no surprise that anybody that equities is where the returns came from last year. Another remarkable year for equity returns promptly driven by US equities, yes, and P500 up 33% in euro terms and NASDAQ up 34%, bottom of the pile where European equities said the 8 eked out a gain of just over 8%. Global equities were up 27% all in euro terms. And this is reflected in the performance of each of the funds that you see here. Looking at the smaller companies range, it is encouraging to see that each of these funds beat their respective benchmarks. Last year, the European fund outperformed its benchmark by almost 5% with the Global Fund meeting its benchmark by almost 2 So hopefully more the same now it's come from the smaller company range of funds this year. In the act of equity space, the North American and the global equities led the charge. Our Vanguard index funds there performed in line with their benchmarks of charges as you would expect from each of those index tracking funds. Bond market returns were more muted and again, this is reflected in the performance of the active and of the index funds that are there. European corporate debt had a great year last year. It was one of the top performing sectors within fixed income and our active corporate bond, as you can see, they delivered 5%. Government bonds were more muted and you can see this in the active fixed in income fund that's there. Even the index bond fund, the global bond fund, which is Vanguard's flagship bond fund was up just just under 1%. In terms of the property funds, other than REITs. So property shares and your your typical bricks and mortar property funds are all in negative territory. And through 2024 the outlook for real estate is more promising going forward.

On the next slide, I'm just going to focus on the multi asset suite of funds that we have, specifically the My Folio market and the global index funds range because they are the most popular. It's worth pointing out, It's worth pointing out that these, the monfolio market and the global index funds are, are two very, very different suites of funds. Funds in terms of not only the asset classes that they do invest in, but also in how they're actually managed. That step performance in terms of risk and return is good to see. Global index funds had a stellar year last year. It's good to see that you're being rewarded for the risk that you're taking as that step as that step performance shows there. The stalwarts I suppose on on the prior right and on the multi asset being the cautious fund and the managed funds which have been around for for quite a long time also delivered good returns. The managed fund being more heavily weighted. The equities obviously generated better returns just over 16% for the cautious managed fund being more heavily tilted towards fixed income space, I suppose returns were more muted for that fund. But overall, quite a good year for multi asset investors and equity, equity investors in general last year. Now to see what's going to happen this year and what we can expect, I'm going to hand it over to Moniz. I think I've done enough talking for now. So, Moniz, welcome and thanks for joining us.

Great. Thank you, Rory. Morning, everyone and thank you for listening in today. If we get jump right into it, get started with market performance for the last quarter of the year, I'll touch on the year as a whole as well. So we'll start off on slide 5Q4 market performance. I think before we look at the last quarter of the year, it's important to acknowledge similar to 2023 and 2024 was kind of like a tale of two halves. And so the first half of the year, the first six months, if you will, were fairly strong. And in terms of performance and particularly on the bond side, equities continue to do well, but bonds in particular did really well in the first half of the year. A lot of that was led by markets sort of, you know, adjusting and adjusting the fact we're now going into a rate cutting cycle with central bank, whether it's ECBBOE or the Fed. So that capital appreciation that many investors saw with bonds with prices, prices going up and yields coming down in the first half of the year was positive from a return perspective.

Now, the second-half of the year, so first of the year, we did hear sort of murmurs and rumours around, you know, valuations being overstretched with the US and you know, the correction is coming, is coming. But here we are. Obviously in 2025, we haven't had a correction yet. But when you do look at valuations in the US, they do look extremely stretched, which we'll talk about a little bit later as well. What that really meant about the second-half of the year in terms of performance was that it was a bit more turbulent, I would say. So in August, obviously, we saw a correction in equity markets, although most of it bounced back like soon after that. But Q4 in particular was fairly turbulent, I would say, especially because there was some repricing in terms of policy rate expectations going forward, largely led by the fact that U.S. economic data has been so resilient. And so there was questions around, you know, whether the Fed is actually going to keep continuing to cut rates at the pace of the market initially expected. And you can see on the chart on the screen some of that performance really seeping in, in a negative way into the bond performance of bond side of the market.

On the other hand, the only one of the few bond markets to do really well in euro terms was obviously U.S. investment grade. Part of that was led by earnings in some of the sectors within U.S. Banks, in particular financials have obviously had a good run performance wise and you could really see that coming through. One of the few markets that continue doing well, of course, as you mentioned earlier as well, Rory, is US equities and you could really see that on the top. But again, having said that, we do still remain cautious about US valuations and we do expect some sort of a correction in the near future, which we'll talk about a little bit later as well. So really it was a good year, I would say, to be diversified not just across equities and bonds, but also within equities and within that sort of bond exposure that you have now. If you just go to the next slide, Slide 6. So what does Vanguard think about the economic and market outlook going forward? I think it's important to address this before we go into more specific factors. I think starting with economic growth, which is obviously been a big topic this year, we expect the number one and the very first number at the top there is the US. We expect U.S. economic growth to sort of land around two, 2%. It is lower than what we've seen in 2024. The reason for that is because we think there was obviously a lot of positive supply side factors that US benefited from over the last few years. If you think about labour, for example, there's obviously a lot of immigration and the kind of labour coming in to the US meant that, you know, productivity got pushed through as well and there was this sort of free flowing labour coming into the market. However, now with some of the policies that we may see from the new Trump government may mean sort of immigration bans, you know, selective immigration, which could then impact some of these supply side factors which contributed to the US economic resilience we saw last year. So all of that could change, which is also factored into why we think growth and productivity is probably going to be lower in the US in 2025. So this is below trend for the US in terms of growth. Now for for the euro area, we're expecting growth to land in a positive territory by the end of the year as well, by the end of 2025, looking at .5%. So half a percent growth, it's pretty muted. It's not negative, but it's muted growth obviously. But again, there's also factors in potential impact of tariffs, even though we don't entirely know what the full impact of tariffs is going to be and we probably won't realistically know for a while.

What is quite clear to see is that there are certain countries obviously, which I'll show you in the next slide, such as Germany, who are actually obviously quite exposed from auto perspective compared to other countries such as Italy, which could benefit if, you know, tariffs imposed in China are quite high. And they could take some of that market share in terms of goods exports to the US.

Finally, looking at the UK, we expect growth to be a modest 1.4% by the end of 2025. This is led by some fiscal easing from the New Labour government in the budget they announced, which includes additional spending. However, this is counterbalanced by the potential for higher inflation resulting from some of these policies.
Now, moving on to inflation, we expect eurozone inflation to be below 2%. In the US and UK, we think inflation will be a bit more sticky, just above 2%, which is above the typical 2% target that central banks aim for. However, it's good to see that inflation is coming under control, with some of the more sticky parts, such as services inflation, coming down over 2024.

For monetary policy rates, we expect the Fed to make two more cuts this year, bringing the policy rate to about 4%. This is because growth is still around 2%, and there is uncertainty about how Trump's policies and tariffs will play out. In the eurozone, we expect the ECB to make five cuts in 2025, bringing the policy rate to 1.75%. In the UK, we expect four additional cuts, bringing the policy rate to 3.75%. This is slightly fewer cuts than we had priced in last year for the BOE, but it is to counterbalance some of the outcomes from the Labour government's budget.

Now, let's talk about tariff hikes. Tariffs are a big news story right now, and they can impact different countries and economies in various ways, depending on their trade surplus or deficit with the US. Countries like China, Mexico, and Germany are more exposed, while countries like France, Italy, and the UK are less likely to be impacted. For example, Germany could see some risks from an autos perspective, but the eurozone as a whole could balance out with Italy potentially benefiting from taking some of China's market share of exports to the US.

Next, let's discuss US tech. There is a lot of conversation around tech stocks being overvalued and driving the US market into an overstretched category. However, from our perspective, while US tech may look expensive, there is more to the story. The top ten stocks in the S&P 500 have seen a spike in their price-to-earnings ratios, but this has been led by the top companies like Apple and Tesla. It's important to look at the fundamentals of each company, as they can vary. Over the long term, companies with strong fundamentals tend to do well, so having broad exposure to the index rather than specific stocks is beneficial.
Now, let's talk about multi-asset investing. Correlation was a big factor last year, with the return of negative correlation between equities and bonds. This means that if equities underperform, bonds should offset some of that negative return with better performance. Higher bond yields provide an income cushion, making fixed income a better defensive element in portfolios. The probability of getting positive returns from fixed income exposure is now higher than it was in 2021.

Finally, let's discuss AI. AI is expected to boost long-term productivity across the world, but we don't expect to see a big economic impact until 2030. To benefit from AI integration, having diverse exposure across different sectors is important. AI's impact will be much broader than just the tech sector, affecting various industries like consumer discretionary, financials, utilities, and consumer staples.
In summary, for the next 10 years, we expect returns for multi-asset investors to be around 3.2% to 3.5%. A 60/40 portfolio is well-positioned for average annualized returns. Regardless of which multi-asset portfolio you choose, returns are expected to be positive and higher than historical levels.
To wrap up, 2024 was a strong year for investors, but volatility is likely to continue. Rate cuts are expected, but policy rates will settle at higher levels than before. Bonds are back, providing higher yields and better protection in diversified portfolios.

Thank you, Monique. We'll now move on to the Q&A session. Please submit your questions via the Q&A tab.
Moniz: Great. Thank you, Rory. Morning, everyone, and thank you for listening in today. If we jump right into it, starting with market performance for the last quarter of the year, I'll touch on the year as a whole as well.
So we'll start off on slide 5, Q4 market performance. Before we look at the last quarter of the year, it's important to acknowledge that 2024 was kind of like a tale of two halves. The first half of the year was fairly strong in terms of performance, particularly on the bond side. Equities continued to do well, but bonds did really well in the first half of the year. A lot of that was led by markets adjusting to the fact that we were going into a rate-cutting cycle with central banks like the ECB, BOE, and the Fed.

The second half of the year was more turbulent. In August, we saw a correction in equity markets, although most of it bounced back soon after. Q4 was particularly turbulent due to repricing in terms of policy rate expectations, largely led by resilient U.S. economic data. This led to questions about whether the Fed would continue to cut rates at the pace initially expected.

On the bond side, U.S. investment-grade bonds did well, led by earnings in sectors like financials. U.S. equities continued to perform well, but we remain cautious about U.S. valuations and expect a potential correction in the near future.
Diversification was key last year, not just across equities and bonds but also within those asset classes.

On slide 6, we discuss Vanguard's economic and market outlook going forward. We expect U.S. economic growth to land around 2%, lower than 2024 due to potential changes in immigration policies under the new Trump government. For the euro area, we expect growth to be around 0.5%, with potential impacts from tariffs. The UK is expected to have modest growth of 1.4%, influenced by fiscal easing and potential higher inflation.
Inflation expectations vary by region. We expect eurozone inflation to be below 2%, while U.S. and UK inflation may be slightly above 2%. This will influence monetary policy rates, with the Fed expected to make two more cuts, the ECB five cuts, and the BOE four cuts in 2025.
On slide 7, we discuss the impact of tariff hikes, which can affect different countries in various ways. Countries like China, Mexico, and Germany are more exposed, while countries like France, Italy, and the UK are less likely to be impacted.
On slide 8, we address U.S. tech valuations. While U.S. tech stocks may look expensive, the fundamentals vary among the top companies. Diversification remains important to mitigate risks.
On slide 9, we highlight the return of negative correlation between equities and bonds, which is beneficial for multi-asset portfolios. Higher bond yields provide an income cushion, making fixed income a better defensive element in portfolios.
On slide 11, we discuss the long-term impact of AI on productivity, which we expect to be significant by 2030. Diversification across sectors is crucial to benefit from AI integration.
On slide 14, we project returns for multi-asset investors to be around 3.2% to 3.5% over the next 10 years. A 60/40 portfolio is well-positioned for average annualized returns.

In summary, 2024 was a strong year for investors, but volatility is likely to continue. Rate cuts are expected, but policy rates will settle at higher levels than before. Bonds are back, providing higher yields and better protection in diversified portfolios.

Rory: Thank you, Monique. We'll now move on to the Q&A session. Please submit your questions via the Q&A tab.

Moniz: On another question, I was touching on AI actually. Do you think Europe can keep pace with the US in terms of AI? I suppose this is probably on foot of Trump coming out and committing 500 billion to AI. Now, I think this was actually introduced by Biden during his term, but Trump is taking credit for it and just increasing the spend in light of the tech companies, I imagine. But do you think Europe can keep pace?

It's a great question. Yeah, so it's not as simple as a yes or no answer. It also kind of links into the first question. I think we tend to be so focused on the US and Europe being developed markets and that's where the growth for AI is potentially going to come from. But actually, what's interesting is that while it feels like the US is the hub of all this AI-driven performance and the leaders that we've seen in the AI sector, Europe has been the hotbed for a lot of those companies. Some are smaller than the Max 7 names that we know, but even within Europe, countries such as Estonia, for example, have had companies that have had really strong earnings in the S&P 500 tech sector. These companies were actually founded and started by Europeans or in Estonia or other countries around Europe.

The problem is because of regulation and some of the fiscal incentives, they've moved to the US, often because the perception is that Silicon Valley is the place to go once you have a successful tech company. But that is changing. European regulation, especially in certain countries across Europe, is trying to incentivize and encourage tech companies, entrepreneurs, and innovators to stay in Europe rather than move to the US.

Would it be difficult for Europe to keep pace with the US? It's difficult to say. The US is obviously leading, but Europe seems like there are things happening which may actually play a part where we might see more growth in the tech sector in Europe as well going forward. There is obviously a gap between the two, but that doesn't mean that the impact of AI is going to be so much bigger than just the tech sector. It won't just be that; it'll be how companies integrate it. How do auto plants in Germany integrate AI into the production of BMWs and Mercedes? That could have a huge impact on those stocks.

Referring to your earlier question about going into the S&P 500, when you look at Asia, you've got Taiwan, Korea, and other tech hubs that are bigger than just TSMC producing chips. There are multiple manufacturers without whose products Apple phones or NVIDIA supercomputers cannot work. So again, the impact of AI is so much bigger than what we see in the Max 7, which is what I was trying to explain on one of the previous slides. So diversification is key.

Rory: Yeah, diversification is key. Sticking on the theme, I suppose this isn't thought of like the equity market returns last year in Europe. They were kind of lagging behind the likes of the US, global, and even emerging markets. Europe is in a bit of a problem when it comes to economic growth. I think I'm almost certain the ECB released figures a couple of weeks back for their five-year forward-looking projections for growth, which have been the lowest ever since the eurozone was established. What's your take on where Europe's going and what needs to be done?

Moniz: Yeah, I think Europe, and don't get me wrong, I think the UK is in a similar boat, if I'm honest. Obviously, you've got this underlying structural demographic trend, which is going against countries like the UK and Europe. The US, on average, has a much younger population. What that really means is it does have an impact on productivity. But you can see now European governments and the UK government are trying to focus a lot more on immigration.

How can I put this? How a lot of countries like Singapore view immigration, where you get immigration in certain sectors, or you get more doctors, engineers, etc. You become more specific about how you see immigration and what your policies are as a result of that. Over the longer term, that's what really helps regions like Europe and countries like the UK, trying to get that average age down but also doing it in the right way where you're getting the right skill set into the country. That's much needed, which is what the US has done so well. It attracts a lot of people with high calibre who then go on to start a lot of these companies. But you can see that Europe and the UK are trying to move in that same direction. But the problem is these things take time to fully show through into the actual economic numbers.

Rory: Yeah, and I suppose that's going to be reflected in equity returns to some degree. This ties into another question. Quite a few questions are asking if the US is going to be the standout market again this year in terms of equity returns globally. Is that for 2025, I assume?

Moniz: For 2025, yeah. There's nothing to say it won't, but there's nothing to say it will either, is there? It's kind of like a finger in the air stuff, isn't it?

Rory: Yeah, I mean, our general view is that expectations from the US in terms of equity returns are overstretched for 2025. Investors are expecting somewhere between 10 to 12% returns from the S&P this year, but if you're expecting nominal GDP in the US, that's probably going to fall around 4-5%. Then you look at policy rates, the fact that they're coming down from the Fed as well, you put that in there, and if you look at profit margins from some of the US companies or the S&P as a whole, 1-2% seems quite realistic. Even that only gets you to 7-8%, and investors are expecting 10-12%. So it just shows you the difference between reality and expectations.

Let's not forget, investors are waiting for that reassurance through the fourth-quarter earnings, which are going to be out soon. That will be a strong sign as to where we're headed with US equities later this year. If fourth-quarter earnings turn out weaker than expected, that might just be the catalyst for the correction that everyone's been waiting for because the Fed did cut rates last year. We might start to see the effects of that through the earnings numbers that come out in the fourth quarter.

Rory: Great. There are a significant number of questions coming in. I don't know if this is on the fault of this meme coin that Trump released a couple of days ago. I'm not expecting you to answer this, Moniz. It's a view on cryptocurrencies. I'm going to say that we don't provide a view on cryptocurrencies, folks. It's particularly when you've got an investment where the price is largely determined by sentiment. Essentially, it's a risky investment. I'm going to leave that to you guys to try and figure out where you want to go.

The US debt, Moniz. Is this a question that is coming up with you a lot in terms of the sustainability of US debt because it is creeping back up to World War II levels? There's certainly no indication yet that Trump is going to pull back on spending. He's got a big infrastructure spend coming through, lots of other policies that are going to require spending. So how sustainable is this?

Moniz: It's a great question. We've definitely had that question a lot. We've had it in the context of the UK as well, which is also at historically high levels with not much fiscal headroom left for the UK government. The thing is, every year we end up in the conversation of the US debt ceiling ratio. The reality is that we need to understand how the next four years of Trump are really going to play out, the impact of tariffs, his policies, and how that really sees through. What we've seen previously is a lot of promises and news stories, but the reality often turns out to be different. The US debt being at the levels that it's at is concerning, but we won't really know what direction it takes by the end of the year until we start to see more color on the policies that are coming through and what the net impact of that is going to be. So it's hard to say right now, but it's definitely a question that's coming up and something that's on our radar in terms of keeping a close eye on it. A lot of that is factored into these forecasts for return expectations over the next 10 years.

Rory: Yeah, I think it's probably OK at the moment. But if it continues on its current trajectory, you could be looking at problems further down the line. Bond markets will likely be the first to react if it does come to that.

Moniz, thank you for your time. We're going to have to finish up. There are other questions coming in, and I will come back to you folks. Just in summary, when we're looking at growth, it's going to be more muted in Europe. We're looking at more attractive rates of economic growth in the US and the UK. Inflation is coming down, probably below the ECB target by the end of the year, a little bit higher in the US and the UK. Rates again, five cuts by the ECB, fewer cuts by the US Federal Reserve. We can't really comment on tariffs until later in the year when we have a clearer indication of what's being done by Trump.
The key takeaway is that bonds are back, and for the first time in quite a long time, the returns that investors are getting from bonds are actually being delivered by yield. You will obviously get price on there, but I just touched on yields, which are extremely important, particularly the compounding effect of the returns over time. The negative correlation between equities and bonds is back, which is great because now you have some level of protection in a diversified multi-asset portfolio during periods of volatility in equity markets. We'll finish up again with diversification is key.

Moniz, thank you very much for your time. This is the last time we're going to have you online. Moniz, you will be finishing up in a couple of months on maternity leave. So congratulations on that, and I do wish you the best.
Folks, thank you very much for your time this morning. As I said, I will come back to you with answers to the questions. I will need to go back to Vanguard for a couple of the answers, but please bear with me in getting those returns out to you.
OK. Thanks very much, folks.

Good morning everybody and thanks for taking the time to join us this morning for our Smaller Companies View and Outlook webinar. This is the last of our investment webinars, so thanks to all of you that have regularly dive in. I'm delighted to be joined this morning by Andrew Paisley. Andrew is the head of smaller Companies, but Aberdeen who's also the manager of the European smaller companies funds, I suppose. Well, it's fair to say there has been a difficult for smaller companies. The past 12 months has certainly been more positive for the asset class. Andrew will touch on a review of smaller companies and the funds together with an outlook for the asset class going forwards. If you do have any questions for Andrew, please use the Q&A tab on the right hand side of your screen. For questions that we do not get to, I will respond to you personally. There is a copy of the slides available in the resources tab and on screen there. Now before I hand over to you, I'd just like to give a quick recap on the next slide of standardised smaller companies offering. We have 4 available on the platform. We have 3 actively managed funds from Aberdeen which you're all familiar with, you know UK, European and global smaller companies funds and we also have these that the Vanguard global small cap index fund which was launched in August this year. If you are happy enough to get small cap returns in London, index of the Vanguard fund is there. However, the actively managed funds have consistently shown over the long term to significantly outperform its benchmark. So if you do want to add a little bit of alpha to a finance portfolio on the edges there, then one of those smaller companies funds may be of interest to you if you are not already invested in them. For those of you that aren't invested in invested in the funds, I am going to move directly over to Andrew and now we will not keep you any longer than 3035 minutes. You have applied for CPD. If you want to keep this as concise as possible for you and I know your time is important. So Andrew, welcome along and thanks for joining us this morning. I'll hand over to you.

Good, good morning. Thanks. Thanks Rory and thanks for joining us the this morning. So, so as mentioned, I head up the the Smith team here at Aberdeen, but I guess more importantly look after the the pan European small midcap funds. So what I'm going to to do over the next sort of 20 minutes or so is, is review recent performance, then make the case for for small caps over the over the long term and then some thoughts on the on the outlook. So maybe if we could move to slide 5 here just in terms of more recent performance on the next on the next slide. So as Rory mentioned that you know has been a challenging couple of years for for small caps relative to large caps really since the start of of 2022. But what we have started to see is really quite a strong recovery in, in the small cap market really over the last 12 months, both in absolute terms, but also now starting to outperform larger companies. As as many of you know, we, we run three main strategies on the on the desk here in Edinburgh, the the European strategy, the UK strategy and, and various global strategies. So, so having a look at the, the returns that we've seen across these over the last 12 months, your very strong performance in, in, in, in absolute terms and, and looking at a bit more specifically, you know, here at the, the European small cap fund, your goods in fact very strong relative returns as well. The fund up 31% against the benchmark up 22%, so ahead of the benchmark by almost 9% over the last 12 months. UK fund up again a very meaningful 29%, outperforming by just over 9%. And the global small cap fund again up in a in a very strong way in absolute terms and and performing broadly in line with the the benchmark. But, but maybe just to put the performance into context over a variety of different time periods on the next slide here. So specifically this relates to the European small cap fund and we've given you various performance stats over the entirety of the the fund since it was launched back in 2007. But but a couple of key points to draw out here. So firstly, you can see that strong performance over the one year time horizon, year to date number and, and, and over the vast majority of of time periods with exception of the three-year number. And, and maybe just to put that into context, you can see in the, the bottom table here, the calendar year performance and, and particularly the 2020 year and the 2022 years where the, the market was more driven by style, both in the, in the upside in 2020, when all the funds had an exceptional period of eight performance as quality and growth outperformed strongly. But then that sort of mean reversing that we saw in 2022 is the market we adjusted to higher interest rates and, and higher inflation. But you know, kind of key point I'd make is that, you know, over reasonable time periods, the funds outperforming the benchmark and also delivering what we think is a good absolute return. So of that 10 year time horizon, you know up by 10.8% per annum. And the performance you see here over all time periods is either first or second quartile relative to to peers and indeed, according to Morningstar, first quartile over all time periods apart from that three-year number, which is actually second quartile as well. So, so good relative performance against the peer group as well as the the benchmark. And as you can see at the bottom page here, you know when you look at the calendar year performance, the fund outperforming 13 out of the the last 16 years. So it's a very good long term track record we believe and adding value over and above the the the benchmark and and maybe just to to kind of put that into context as to where we deliver value on the next slide. You know, what we we we did here was that to have a look at the kind of macro which is I'm sure you'll be aware is, is not terribly good at the moment. But you know, you could probably have made that case at any point over the last 10 years that the macro has not been not been great. But Despite that, we still see some great individual company performances. So what we have specifically here on the left hand side is some German macro data. And you know, we, we, we use the, the German market as it's one of the, the bigger overweights in the in the fund. And as you can see from a macro perspective, you probably wouldn't be investing in Germany looking purely at the macro. But Despite that negative, what we see at the micro level is still some fantastic individual company returns. And indeed the German market has been one of the strongest performers for us both over the last 12 months and over the the longer term. So two companies here on the right hand side that that we have held for for a long time period rationale which is the the global leader in the the the manufacturer of commercial cooking appliances using a particular kind of technology that was invented by the founder of the business back in the 70s. This has got an amazing long term track record of growth started off in Germany has expanded through Europe and is now very much a global growth story. And you can see you know over the last 12 months that that share price performance. But actually if you look over a much longer time period exceptional returns from from rationale. So a high quality company with great long term growth prospects and strong operating momentum. And if you like that, it's very much the kind of things that we're looking for in all our investments. This QGM approach as many of you will be aware of and used in conjunction with our proprietary quad tool that we, we call the the Matrix, the second company here CTS eventing you, you probably haven't heard of unless you're in the in the DAC region, in which case you, you most certainly will have done. It's the leading online ticketing platform for live events. So, so the equivalent of live Live Nation in terms of what it does very much the market leader here. And, and what we see over a long time period is strong structural growth initially from the, the move from paper ticketing to online and now to mobile ticketing. But I guess over more recent years, the trend that we see within music acts to, to two or more. So, so many of you will be aware of the, the, the Taylor Swift phenomenon that we, we've seen globally over the last couple of years and a realization from musicians that actually where you make the real money is not so much these days in terms of royalties, but actually getting out and touring. And, and, and we see that trend continuing. And partly due to the success of of the Taylor Swift tour, we've seen any number of acts now announcing tours going forward from kind of Oasis from the 1990s to I saw Bruce Springsteen's back on the road again or any number of acts that are getting back out in the road and touring. And that's great for, for eventum. They, they take a fee on the on the ticket price for using their platform. And it's a dominant platform in, in, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and I also in in France, again, another Finder managed business, the Finder of the business is the biggest shareholder here. So, so these companies growing despite what's going on and in the in the macro and and it highlights that you know where you make the, the, the real money in small caps is focusing on the micro rather than worrying too much about the the macro.

So moving on then to the long term case for the for the asset class and quite simply on the next page is about returns. So what we have done here is to, to, to have a look at the performance of both the, the, the large cap benchmark against the, the small cap benchmark going back to the, the start of the, of the of, of the century. And, and what you see from the large cap benchmark, you're pretty decent returns at almost 200% over that time period, but actually much, much stronger returns from from the small cap benchmark it almost 500 and 40%. So, so over longer time periods, we, we tend to see smaller companies outperform large caps. It's this so-called small cap effect. Now clearly that hasn't been the case during 2022 and 2023. But you know, we always advocate to our underlying holders to have a long term time horizon in their investment profile as we do with our underlying investments. We we look to invest on a minimum of three to five years and actually much longer if the investment case remains intact and turnover in the funds has been around about 10% over the last few years. So an implied holding period of of of 10 years and we think that's where you make the real money in small caps is this long term time horizon. And indeed, on the right hand side, you can see here that over rolling three-year time periods, small caps have outperformed large caps 75% of the of the time. And over rolling five year time periods that goes up to 85% of the time. So, so we always advocate having that long term time horizon. You have a good allocation to small caps, you know, put it in the top drawer and and forget about it. Don't try and a market time entry and exit into small caps. You know, that can be, can be quite difficult sometimes and, and it can be a more volatile asset class over the, over the shorter run.

So that's the, the return side of the equation. You know, one question we often get asked though, is you what about the risk side of the equation? Small caps are perceived to be, you know, much higher risk than than larger companies. And and that can be the case, but the way that we go about investing in small caps is very much focused on, on quality companies. So we have portfolios that have a much higher return on equity than the the benchmark, much stronger balance sheets. And importantly, we have no loss making companies and no speculative businesses. So these, these tend to be the, the kind of companies that are, are binary outcome in nature. Either they go up 10 times or they go to zero. And and that for us is not the right risk profile, but having a look more generally at this risk topic, this is some work that we did to have a look at the, the risk of, of small caps by different geographies. And, and indeed what you see across all of the geographies is that small caps are are slightly more volatile than than larger companies. And that isn't really a, a great surprise. But I think what we think is, is much more important is on the next slide is having a look at the risk adjusted return profile. So having a look at the returns that are being generated compared to the amount of additional risk that you are taking. And, and indeed what we see is that particularly in the Europe's European markets, but but more more broadly as well, generally we see better risk adjusted returns for, for small caps relative to to large caps. So, so this we think is a key, key part to the equation is that for sure you're taking maybe a bit more risk in terms of the allocation to small caps, but the but the you're being more than adequately rewarded for that additional risk, particularly over longer time periods where you can, you can smooth out some of that short term volatility that we sometimes see in in smaller companies.

So the next slide, just to bring this to life a bit more in terms of an individual stock example, this company GTT is, is a company we've held in the the portfolio for several years now. It's French quoted, but actually is very international in nature. It's the the global leader in the in the design and licensing of technology for the the membranes that go into these Dome tanks in LNG carriers. I say here it's got an 80% global market share, but actually it's a de facto monopoly provider. So it is essentially providing 100% or has 100% market share. Now it doesn't manufacture anything. It licenses the clever technology that keeps the gas liquefied in these domes principally to to shipyards in in South Korea and they also in, in other geographies as well. An asset light business model, high returns and strong cash on the on the balance sheet. Now what we see here is a structural growth story around LNG in in part triggered by the conflict in in Ukraine and that switch from from pipes rushing gas to to to shift LNG. And we think that trend continues. You know, I don't think we'll ever go back to relying on piped rushing gas again. And indeed that's what we see in terms of the, the, the pipeline of orders coming through over over really the last couple of years in particular a very strong pipeline indeed. There was another order announced yesterday from from South Korea and that being reflected in, in, in strong interim results and continued strong operating momentum. So this is a company very much fits our quality, growth and momentum criteria that we see in all our all our companies. And as a long term holding we would expect to have this business in the portfolio for many years to to come. But putting that into context along with the other top 10 holdings, what we see here is an eclectic mix of our best bottom up stock ideas across developed European markets, a very stable list. So these are companies that generally we will, we've held in the portfolios for a long time high conviction. You know, at the end of the day, we do a lot of due diligence in our holdings and we want to make those holdings tight. But also there's there's an element of this buy and hold approach. So as our companies hopefully deliver or exceed their expectations, the share price goes up, the market cap goes up, but also the percentage within the portfolio goes up. So this long term buy and hold approach is fundamental to our our process and that's where we think you make the real money in, in smaller companies itself over these very long time horizons.

So moving on then a couple of thoughts on on outlook and why we think they might be an interesting time to have a look at the asset class again. So the first one here is around valuations. You know, small caps we do think look quite attractively valued against large caps. This is some work that we did to have a look at the the relative valuation of small against large caps currently sitting at a 4% PE discount. And as you can see, the average PE over over that time period is a premium of 26%. And indeed the last time that we were sitting at this kind of discount, you've got to go all the way back to the GFC back in 2000 and and eight. So what we did then was to have a look at what happened in 2008 and over the proceeding over the next time period. It's maybe some kind of food for thought as to what may happen this time around given the scale of of discount. And indeed what you see here is over that one year time period, small caps outperforming large caps by 26% / 3 years by 34% and over five years by 90%. So really quite considerable a performance of a small caps against large caps back in that 2000 and eight 2009 and subsequent time periods. Second point here is, is bringing in the the growth side of the equation as well as the valuation side and slide 16 here. So what we did was to plot the, the earnings growth of large caps in Europe and global large cap and, and valuations. And, and what we see is, is, is we think quite, quite interesting in that you're in the European small cap market, you're getting much faster growth, but actually a pretty attractive valuation again. So, so not only is it the valuation side of the equation, but it's also the the growth side of the equation where we see a European small caps in particular growing much more strongly than the the large cap benchmark.

One interesting topic we we're often asked about currently is around the interest rate cycle and how small caps perform in various phases of an interest rate cycle. So on the next slide, this is some some work that we did to to have a look at, at that. So, so this is looking at the performance of small caps against large caps after the first rate cut, after the first three months, six months and and 12 months. And, and what we see is, is pretty consistent, namely that small caps after the first rate cut cut historically have performed much better than large caps. And indeed over that 12 month time horizon by really quite some margin, up by 26.6%. Against the large cap benchmark up 15.6% and we think that's one of the reasons why we've started to see small caps performing better against large caps usually over the last six months is this move into an interest rate cutting cycle. And intuitively that does make sense in terms of your where small caps are positioned generally. So, so we think it's an interesting point where we are in the the interest rate cycle. And then a, a slight, A slight topic perhaps, but one which we thought is of of topical interest. Just have a look at how smaller companies have performed. This is AUS study have performed historically before midterm and presidential elections and then after midterm and presidential elections in the in the US and, and, and the data we think is, is quite interesting in terms of that that 12 month number after presidential elections. So, so small caps generally historically performing better than than large caps. And and you'll have noted that you know, certainly you know the first few days after the election very strong outperformance of the Russell 2000 against the the large cap benchmark. And if history is any guide to the future, we would expect that to continue over the over the remaining 12 month time period.

So, so pulling all that together then in in summary on the on the next slide, performance we see being very strong over the last 12 months both in absolute terms and and relative to to benchmarks. And indeed the European fund as mentioned outperforming its benchmark 13 years out of the the last 16-16 years. And and first or second quartile performance overall time periods. Indeed, look at Morningstar to the end of October, top quartile over every time period apart from that three-year number, which is second quartile. The performance very much being driven by our bottom up stock selection, our, our tried and tested process that's been in place now since 1997, tried and tested through we think 5 economic cycles. So very much focusing on the bottom up rather than the the top down, trying to find these exceptional high quality growth businesses that we're happy to buy for long time periods. The long term case for the asset class is simply around the the high return profile that we have seen over over reasonable time periods. But in addition to that superior risk adjusted returns. It's a fantastic universe for us to to pick stocks from. As a, as a bottom up stock picker, you have the opportunity to invest in roughly about 1000 companies. Now we're looking to invest in the best 40 to 50 of those. But agree an interesting universe for us to to to find these high quality long term growth businesses. And then finally in terms of the outlook, why we think now is an interesting time to have a look at the the asset class. Again, valuations do look very attractive relative to, to, to large caps and also relative to, to, to history as well. When we look at the data by by region, we think where we are in the interest rate cycle is positive for the performance of the the asset class relative to to large caps. And, and for those that are looking at the US, we we think now is if history is any guide to the, the future. Now is an interesting juncture given how small caps are performed historically against large caps after presidential elections. So I'll stop there and happy to take any any questions.

Andrew, yeah, thanks for thanks for that. There are a couple of questions after coming through to me. I suppose the first one that I'd like to put to you is regarding the performance of the Global Small Cap fund. And we don't have the performance of the UK and European fund at the start of the presentation. Both of those ones were significantly outperforming the benchmark over the course of the past 12 months. Global smaller company is that is almost bang on the benchmark really. Is there a reason or a number of reasons that's holding back to almost follow complete performance?

Yeah, so, so if you have a look at the the composition of the the fund and the benchmark, it has you know a significant weighting to the US market around about 50%. And, and what we've seen in terms of the benchmark performance in the US is, you know, it is heavily, more heavily tilted towards financials and and some more kind of speculative businesses that have bounced quite strongly over the over the 12 months. Now that's what we'd probably expect expect to see at this phase in the cycle. Normally what we'd expect to see is quality starting to do better. So it doesn't phase us. It's a natural point in the in the cycle in terms of these businesses bouncing harder. But you know as as I mentioned earlier, you know, we are absolutely sure that over a reasonable time period you want to be focused on, on quality and these low, low quality speculative businesses, you know they kind of have their day in the sun, but generally don't do well over longer time periods.

Great, Thanks. I'm sticking on composition of funds. There's a question after coming in on European smaller companies fund and it's allocation to the UK I suppose. I think the last time I looked at yesterday was about 34% as well. Is there a reason such a large proportion of the European fund allocated to the UK?

Yes. So I guess the first point to make is that the, the, the index classification is based on where a company is quoted. But actually that doesn't necessarily tell you where the economic exposure is. So when we look at the composition of our UK holdings, they're actually very international in nature. Just that, you know, by way of example, one of our biggest holdings is a company called Diploma Group headquartered in London, quoted in the UK. But actually 93% of its turnover is outside of the the UK. So what we're getting through these businesses is international growth opportunities. And actually when we look at the composition of the the UK holdings, they tend to be underweight domestic, UK overweight international earnings. I guess the other point to make is, you know, relative to the benchmark, it's not particularly large overweight, the benchmark is heavily weighted to to the UK as well. And and I guess the Third Point is we still find, despite best efforts of, of, of UK government, we still find some great quality UK businesses and, and you know, they continue to deliver well for us over long time period. So diploma would be one example, intermediate capital another, Morgan Syndal being another one. So, so very much driven by the bottom up by the matrix. But but I guess the the overall exposure is less to domestic UK, more to international earnings growth would.

You be more positive on the European Fund over the Global Fund, Andrew, it's a fair question to ask.

Sorry, say that again.

Would you, would you be more positive on the outlook for the European Fund at the moment or, or the Global Fund?

At the moment that's a slightly loaded question as the European, as the European manager. So I guess what I'd say is it, it depends on your, on your approach, whether you like allocating yourself to different geographies or whether you want to leave that to the, to the manager. So if you're, if you're taking that regional approach, you would certainly argue strongly that, that, that Europe is very attractively positioned at the moment, as, as mentioned from a valuation perspective, from a growth perspective and, and also in terms of the, the individual companies that we have in the in the portfolio. But, but if you want to leave that to the manager, we think our Global Fund is a great way to, to get exposure to, to, to, you know, many of our best ideas in Europe that will be in the Global Fund as well as our best ideas across other geographies from the small cap, from the small cap team.

Thanks. This is a question I came through on hedging as well, whether any hedging was applied to funds. I can say that there's not. We don't put any of our equity funds on the platform. So the outlook, the outlook is certainly looking better, OK. And inevitably our risks associated not just with smaller companies but equities, equity markets in general. What's keeping you awake at night at the moment? There's a trouble, you know, there's policies that we potentially bring in. There's a recession in the UK. Is it inflation coming back? Is it one or a number of them or all of them?

Yeah. So, so I guess what I'd say is coming back to the earlier point, you know, the, there's always kind of five reasons not to invest in, in Europe generally from a macro perspective. But Despite that, if you look at the performance of small caps and and the fund, you know, we've delivered great returns over long time periods. So, so the macro doesn't keep me awake at, at at night. Clearly there are some, some risks out there, but what we're much more focused on are the the 40 odd holdings in the company, holdings in the portfolio, how they're delivering and how they're positioned for long term growth. So, So what we're trying to do are by companies that have some kind of structural growth driver behind them that helps mitigate the economic cycle. So for sure they're not going to be completely immune to the economic cycle, but by having exposure to the structural growth stories, you know, GTT, for example, as, as I was talking about in relation to the move to LNG gas being shipped, we think that helps drive growth semi independently of what's going on in the in, in, in the macro. And indeed where, where we see risk in the portfolio. The majority of our risk is taken at the stock level. You know, kind of 65% of of our risk is at the micro level and not the, the, the, the macro level. So, so for sure there's risks, but I mean, at any point over the last 10-15 years, there's been been lots of macro risks to to, to, to worry about.

Yeah. I think, I think I think it's fair to say then in summary, I welcome back to a couple of other questions there, but I will come back separately. In terms of smaller companies, the funds and supposedly asset class, the output is certainly bad, right. The risks, there are risks that remain, but ignore the macro essentially ignore the noise. But most importantly, patience is key when investing in smaller companies together with a long term time horizon obviously.

Is that fair?

I think that's a great, a great summary, yeah.

Perfect. Andrew, listen, thank you very much for your time. It's very much appreciated, folks. I look forward to speaking to you in the new Year. So probably it might be a little bit early to say, but have a good Christmas and a happy New Year. Thanks.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome along to our quarterly investment outlook. I'm Murray MacDonald. I'm an Investment Development Manager with Standard Life. This is our final market update of the year and I'm delighted to be joined once again by Monique Dear. For most of you that have logged in regularly over the past couple of quarters, you'll be well familiar with Monique at this stage. She has a great talent for explaining the complex investing world quite simply and in an engaging way. So thank you for joining me this morning, Monique. It was a very good quarter for investors in quarter three, particularly as opposed to those in bond markets and for emerging market equities. Monique is going to touch on quarter three shortly. We'll then move on to the US economy followed by an outlook for equities and bonds and what multi, what type of returns multi asset investors can expect going forward.

Before I hand over to Monique, just a couple of housekeeping issues. We have applied for CPD for this event, OK. We don't expect to keep it any longer than 30 to 40 minutes depending on the number of questions that actually come through. If you do have any questions, please use the Q&A tab on the right hand side of the screen. And just a reminder, a number of invites have gone out already for our final webinar, investment webinar of the year, which is actually two weeks from today at 10 AM. And we're going to be joined by Andrew Paisley, who is Aberdeen's head of smaller companies. He's going to talk through recent performance and outlook for the asset class. So for those of you that have client money in the smaller companies range, I imagine it will be very interesting webinar. So Monique won't hold it up any longer, and I'll hand that over to you.

Great. Thanks, Rory. Good morning, everyone. So we'll talk a little bit about performance before we jump into more specifics around equities, bonds and what all of that means for multi asset. If we can move to the next slide. I think one of the sort of key things to point out, obviously this is obviously Q3 market performance and a lot has happened since end of September. Now we're in November, obviously two months post the third quarter already, but those two months have been quite big in terms of a lot of events. So if we can, sorry, if we can just move to the next slide, please. Two of the sort of key events worth pointing out is obviously one is AUK budget, which for the UK at ease was a big, big sort of marker in the calendar. It has raised questions around whether that whether the budget is inflationary and what that means for the POA policy rate path going forward. Now the other sort of big event, which I think everyone on the pool is well familiar with and probably talking about in different shapes and forms as AUS election, we've often said as a house from Vanguard's view that, you know, elections shouldn't drive your asset allocation and they shouldn't drive your investment decisions. We still stand by that point. Often what tends to happen with big events elections is that in the short term you'll get some volatility, you'll get market reactions, but it's really the sort of impact over the longer term of new rules and new changes in fiscal policy that come in with a new government that really have an impact on markets. But all of that takes a long time to actually fully pan out and really start to show effect in terms of economic data, but also how financial markets respond. So there's always a knee jerk reaction, but we still believe we shouldn't make asset allocation decisions on the back of it.

So sorry if we can just move to the next slide, the market performance in Q 3/20/24. I think it's worth pointing out that Q3 was a great quarter in terms of returns, quite different from sort of the start of the year when you look at Q1 and Q2Q1 and Q2 was still fairly positive, but Q3 was extremely positive in terms of numbers. Equities and bonds both outperformed over the quarter. Bonds in particular made a bit of a comeback over the summer, which is worth pointing out. I think a lot of you will probably remember the correction that we saw from US equities in August, which was driven by unemployment numbers coming out of the US coming in much weaker than expected initially. And that sparked a concern with the US equity markets around, you know, whether the US is heading towards a recession. Is the economy weaker than weaker than we expected. And that essentially caused U.S. equity market correction that we saw, in particular in some of the Max 7 stocks, which have obviously been doing really well. However, since then, we've seen the markets recover again, in particular in US equities despite concerns around corrections. So it's definitely been a very interesting few months, generally pretty positive from a return perspective. It was strong quarter and we saw US valuations expanding further. Despite all the concerns around US being overvalued, S&P continues to do well.

And if we just move on to the next slide on valuations, and so if we just move to the slide with valuations of US equities, it's worth pointing out that valuations for U.S. equity have been the biggest conversation topic this year and rightly so. They have been driving pretty much everything that's been going on. The key point to sort of take here is that even though valuations have expanded, the picture does vary a little bit. When you look at S&P and you look at the cons and IT sector within that where all the Max 7, a lot of the Max 7 stocks sit. And then when you compare that to midcap and small cap, what's quite clear to see is that the valuation expansion hasn't been as dramatic in midcap and small cap compared to what we've seen in the tech sector. So a lot of the sort of valuation concerns that we see in the US really are driven, driven by a handful of stocks as we as we all know. But this chart just sort of puts it into factual, factual numbers.

If we now move on to the to the slide with economic indicators pointing to a recession, 3 key economic indicators which are usually the sort of go to when it comes to markets in terms of what indicates A recession. The first one is a Sam rule. So this one sort of goes in and out in terms of market preference, but it definitely seems very relevant this year because it's very much focused around unemployment. Essentially all it's trying to show you is that when the three month average of unemployment rate exceeds that of the 12 month average by half a percent, it basically shows that we are probably about to enter a recession. Now the second one is the yield curve. So an inverted yield curve and huge points is an early indication of a recession. So that's the spread between the 10 year U.S. Treasury bond and the three month U.S. Treasury yield. And then lastly credit spreads again, very good risk indicators and show you the appetite of risk within the market and how much risk, how much additional sort of compensation investors require for additional risks and that has been increasing. So what you can see here as a summary before we just move to the next slide is that economic indicators are pointing to a recession. This is still the case even even post the Trump election as economic data stands today.

So if we just move to the next slide, which is about the US economy slowing, not crashing, we do think that when you drill sort of below the surface and you really look at the economic data, so you look at the supply side and the demand side. So the three indicators at the top, consumption, income and industrial production are essentially your supply indicators and at the bottom payrolls, labour force and unemployment are your demand indicators. What's quite clear to see is that supply looks like it's in pretty decent shape. So people are going out and you know, they're consuming consumption still doing OK. Relative to when you look at during historic periods when U.S. economy was quite weak, the numbers actually look quite positive compared to that. Income is still good, production is still industrial, production is still decent and positive, payrolls are increasing, the number is positive and labour force participation is positive as well. The only one that is flashing alarm bells, if you will, is the unemployment rate, which is a very last chart on the bottom right hand side. Now the reason that this chart is important is because usually again, it's an early indicator that we might be going into a weaker economic period. Now all of this put together, it's telling you that actually even though economic indicators are pointing to a recession, we might be going into weaker economic growth rather than negative economic growth. So positive growth, but but weaker than where we are today.

Now if we go to the next slide, which is around the Fed scenarios and what we expect, we think that the market is generally broadly is pricing in a recession in the US, We think that actually we're probably likely going to have a turbulent landing, which means that growth is not going to be negative. It's going to be weaker, probably between 1 to 2% in the US, which will drive the broader rhetoric for the Fed. Fed and also globally as well as other central banks do tend to tend to follow the Fed fairly closely. Inflation, we think, is going to come quite close to the target where the Fed wants it, but it's going to be slightly elevated. This is one point that might obviously change with Trump's election and some of the tariffs that he wants to impose and some of the other policies that he wants to sort of put back into into play in January could mean that, you know, the environment becomes more inflationary in the US compared to where we are today. But again, those are effects we won't see at least for another year, 7 to 8 months at the very minimum. So it's something that you can't really call, call a decision on now, but it's something to watch very closely. What does that mean in terms of policy rates? So we think the Federal Reserve is going to cut rates going forward, but it's going to be a gradual easing which means 25 basis points this year at the next meeting and then into next year as well, at least until summer next year.

So what does all of this mean for multi asset investors if we move on to the slide with stock bond correlation? Now let's assume for a second that our forecasts are wrong and the US does end up going into a recession and growth is indeed negative. The good thing there is that as a multi asset investor, you are exposed to both bonds and equities and stock bond correlation is actually much closer to getting closer to its longer term average and mean reverting, which is what you want it to do. And in order for bonds to be that balance in your portfolio, you need that stock bond correlation to go back to its negative correlation over the long term versus stocks, which is the direction it's moving in. Now. You saw a little bit of a sort of preview of this and what that dynamic really means in the summer when equities underperformed. So when we saw that U.S. equity market correction in in in August, bonds actually performed really well, which is what you can see on the chart on the right hand side. So again, bonds acting as that ballast is very much back, back on the table, which is great for multi asset investors even if US wants to go into weaker economic growth.

Now if we can just move two slides on to the equity return outlook which is focused around valuations on the left hand side, you can see that relative stock market valuations. So when you look at equities indices around the world, it's quite clear to see that we think majority of the equity indices are either fairly valued or slightly stretched. In the case of US and UK, however, we've been talking about this for a while and a lot of this is dependent on everything that we know today. Evaluations are calculated based on all the information that we have today. And obviously, given how quickly the landscape is changing and potentially if, you know, on the back of some of the sort of Trump's new policies and the UK budget as well, if it turns out that, you know, a lot of these initiatives turn out to be more inflationary than initially expected, that could potentially change the policy rate path next year. Now, what does that mean? That could mean that the US equity market correction everyone's talking about doesn't actually happen this year. And if it does happen, it's actually much lower in magnitude than what everyone is expecting or expected. So valuations are a good guidance in terms of directions, but they're not in foldable indicators. They're based on information at a point in time and what your expectations are going forward. But obviously as other factors in economic data comes into play, that does change, change over time. And again, it kind of brings me back to the point of, you know, why diversification is so important as a multi asset investor, because you can't always control, you know, what indicators come into play and what does that mean for forecast going forward. But what you can control is making sure that you have as broad exposure as possible. So given that US is one of the biggest markets in the world and a very self-sufficient economy in many ways, it is important to have exposure to US equities regardless of what valuations are saying. And equally, it's very important to have exposure to other markets in the world to make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket taking you on to sort of returns. Like if you look at the chart on the right hand side, again sort of pointing out that you know, even despite expecting expectations of some correction this year in US equities, actually the picture looks really bright in terms of returns going forward. So these are our 10 year return forecasts. Looking ahead in the dark bold black number, you can see 10 year average annualized returns for different equity markets, including global equities in euros unhedged. And you can see the number is sort of, you know pretty positive close to 5%. So the picture looks very positive and again when we move on to the if we just move on to the next slide, it's time in the market, not time in the market that counts. People have been talking about an S&P correct S&P correction for a long time and it may happen, it may not happen. But the reality is that actually when you look at fund flows which are in the red bars, you can see that they tend to sort of be more volatile where people are going in and out of you know S&P where they have more conviction, less conviction. But the green line which is S&P index you can see continues to go up. So if you're an investor who invested in the S&P back in 2000 and nine, 2010 and you had the discipline to stay in the market, not be distracted by all the noise around you, you actually did really well. And investors will continue to do well if they keep that investing principle in mind of time in the market, not time in the market. And again, similar sort of story if we move to the next slide on market corrections and recovery periods, what's quite clear to see is that, you know, the green periods which are towards the top are positive return periods for global equities. In Euros, MSCI world to be exact, you can see that positive return periods in green are actually much longer lived and much higher in magnitude compared to the negative return periods at the bottom in red. So as humans, we have a short term bias and we have recency bias where we think that, you know, we remember what we've sort of seen and known in the last sort of few months. Yeah. But actually if you really sort of zoom out and look over the long term, again, that discipline and diversification being global and really making sure you stick to your asset allocation pays off over the long term.

Now if we move to the next section, which is so we've talked a little bit about equities, we've talked a little bit about what happened in Q3 and about the US economy as well. I think before we go on to the multi asset outlook, it will be really good to talk about bonds a little bit to complete the multi asset picture. And we can't talk about bonds without talking about policy rates. So if we move on to the next slide looking at policy rates across Federal Reserve, ECB and Bank of England as well. Now on this slide, it's quite obvious to see that we expect rates to come down across all three different economies. The the point that I want to sort of want you to take away as it is today is that even though we expect rates to come down in the next year or so, we do think that once they are finished with the rate easing cycle, regardless of what happens with the sort of Trump administration and the impact of the budget in the UK, regardless of that, we actually think that policy rates are still going to settle at a higher level than what we've been used to. Now, what does that mean? So since the global, since the financial recession in 2008, rates have been close to 1% negative in some cases. We think that after this policy easing cycle rates will settle somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3% on average across UKUUS and Europe as well. That's not a bad thing. I know it's not what we're used to, but it's not a bad thing. This is normal market dynamic rates at 0 or negative or not normal and that something like that has longer term repercussions. However, a rate at 2 1/2 three percent is what's more normal for markets. It's also good for multi asset investors because it actually means that your fixed income component actually has a much higher income component than it did before.

Now what does that actually mean in practice? So if we go to the next slide, which is on yield and duration. So on the left hand side in the green, you can see the duration for your for the global AG index and in euros and that's usually a good representative of the fixing compulsion within your multi asset portfolio. Now duration is a good measure of risk for a fixed income portfolio and you can see that the duration in the last few years, the green line at the top has been coming down. Now the red line at the bottom, that's your yield to us. So that's basically the potential yield you can earn on your fixed income portfolio and you can see that that has been going up. So while your risk has been coming down, your yield potential has actually been going up. So to put it in sort of, you know, simple terms, if you look on the right hand side, the yield per unit of duration, so the income per unit of risk that you take has actually gone up compared to 2020 because rates have moved up. And because we expect rates to stay around two and a half 3% even after the cuts. That's a good thing because it means that the income that you get per unit of risk that you take in a fixed income portfolio is going to be extremely strong going forward. And we'll see a little bit later on that that actually also reflects quite strongly in fixed income outlook, in multi asset outlook going forward, it's also reflected. In fixed income outlook going forward more specifically, so if we move to the next slide, which is on duration and investment grade credit and valuations, you can see that on the left hand side, fixed income valuations are actually slightly different from where we think equity valuations are. We think there's a lot more room to go in terms of positive performance. We think some of the areas within fixed income U.S. Treasuries in particular are undervalued and we think if we move to the right hand side of the slide on the the chart on the right, you can see that fixed income returns are actually quite close to equity returns going forward. A big reason for that is the income component that I just mentioned earlier, especially if you're invested in global bonds across the universe, you're probably in a very, very good place in terms of returns going forward.

Just moving on to the last sections of the outlook, what can multi asset investors expect beyond Q4 2024 since we're here wrapping up the year today? So if we just move on to the next slide, which is our outlook for year-end 2024, we think economic growth is going to be weaker than where we are today across all three economies, US, UK, and Europe. Core inflation we think is going to get closer to central bank targets, but it will still remain slightly elevated around sort of somewhere between 2.5% and 3.5%. We are going to see additional policy cuts from ECB, the Fed, and the BOE as well, but we think the easing's going to be gradual. So they won't do big cuts, but they will do 25 basis cuts at each one of their meetings.

Now what does all of this mean for multi asset outlook going forward? So if we move to our outlook slide diversifying multi asset investors are in position so well going forward in order to benefit from some of the dynamics that we're going to see going forward. Now we've said sort of in these webinars over the last year time and time again that this market is not normal. We are going towards normal, but we think there's still going to be some volatility and some uncertainty in the market, especially now with Trump in the White House. We're expecting, you know, executive orders probably every other month to start coming through, but realistically, a lot of the impact that we'll see from some of the newer fiscal policies coming out of the US will have an impact on how markets shape up for the second-half of 2025.

Now, taking a lot of this into account, what does it mean for your return forecast going forward? So as you can see on the slide, and these are our forecast for the next 10 years, the annualized returns, potential annualized returns over the next 10 years. Obviously it doesn't mean that we're telling you that you know the numbers in the bowl in the middle there, the median or the average annualized return over the next 10 years that you're guaranteed this return every year. It could be higher, it could be lower, but on average this is where we think it will land in the next 10 years for each one of the multi asset portfolios. Now what's quite obvious to see obviously is that the bond portfolios and the equity portfolios, equity heavy portfolios have a much smaller difference in terms of average returns. However, it's worth pointing out that the upside that you could potentially obviously get in a higher equity portfolio will still be much higher compared to what you could get on a bond heavy multi asset portfolio. And again, a lot of this is also dependent on, you know, everything we know today. And as markets sort of shift and expectations move around policy rates in the next quarter, it'll be interesting to see if something changes quite dynamically in terms of what the market's expecting. However, we do still think that going forward, multi asset investors are really well positioned as long as you're diversified and you're disciplined in how you invest.

I'll stop there, Rory, and pass back to you.

Thanks, Monique. Thank you for that. We've got a couple of questions that are out for coming in. Yeah. The first is probably the most obvious when you look at how what equity markets have done, particularly in the US over the course of the past 10 days or so. And they've really been driven by, I suppose, Trump trade. So definitely any views on that or whether any the reality of Trump being president will actually sink in with investors.

Yeah. So I think as Vanguard, we're sort of well known to beat the drum about how elections should not change your asset allocation or how you invest. What elections to do on average is introduce a lot of noise into the market. And what that means is the short term, you'll see a specific trade. In this case, obviously the Trump trade, you can see Dodge Point, for example, crypto is having a moment now as well. Headlines are covered with Dodge Coin at the moment. And that's just one of the examples of the sort of short term noise that you tend to see when when elections become become the news, especially when you have obviously a candidate like Trump coming into the White House. So we do think that obviously over the next few months, there will be more volatility, there'll be more uncertainty on the back of investors going in and out of this Trump trade potentially. We do think, though, we'll have more clarity in terms of the direction of the market probably early next year once he's actually in the White House and once fiscal policy, the sort of clarity on fiscal policy starts to come through. So things such as tariffs and in new policies that he implements and what impact does that actually have on inflation, on growth? That that really is the big question. And that's what's going to drive markets going forward. It's not so much, you know, whether crypto is back in favour or not. It's going to be much more focused on why, if Trump is going to increase tariffs on, you know, developed markets or go crazy with tariffs on China or what does that actually mean for inflation? And then as a knock on effect, what does that mean in terms of the, you know, the Fed policy rate path? Because what markets are pricing in right now is obviously that Fed continues to to cut policy rates. But if Trump's, some of Trump's fiscal policies are more inflationary, that could lead to Fed's past changing slightly from what we know today. So that's going to be the sort of big one I think to watch out over the sort of as we go into into 2025. Think he knows what he's doing, more so this time around than what he did in his first term, doesn't he?

Yeah, definitely. You definitely build that. Probably the scary thing, and I think you've nearly answered some of the other questions that came in just in relation to tariffs being inflationary for the US economy. Yeah. And so potentially strengthening the US dollar as well. I did, I read an interesting article in the Financial Times about tariffs, something that's well versed on tariffs. And it was interesting to see that when when Trump actually introduced 25% tariffs on Chinese goods, the Chinese government could actually reduce the value of the renminbi percent to actually compensate for the increased costs and their export in the US. The interesting thing is that if Trump does introduce 100% tariffs on some Chinese schools, so he is talking about that would equate to 60% reduction in the renminbi, which could actually result in a runaway U.S. dollar in terms of valuation, which could be, yeah, very tricky to manage for, for for the US economy. So a lot of unanswered questions, I suppose, as you said, hopefully some of which will get more clarity to come January.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think another dynamic sort of worth pointing out is obviously that China's in a very different situation from when last when Trump was last in the White House, right? We obviously see in the stimulus package, you can see the economy is obviously not as strong as it used to be. There's a lot of sort of underlying issues within the Chinese economy right now, which obviously Xi Jinping will need to be sort of more mindful of if they are looking at the evaluation of the RMB. But again, there are so, and this is kind of what I was trying to say earlier, there are so many moving dynamics compared to when Trump was in the White House last time, in particular with inflation that could change the path of so many things going forward in 2025. And This is why we've sort of been really beating the drum about diversification again, because you can't, it's really difficult to know the true impact of policies like this until six months later because economic data doesn't show, you know, runs with a lag. You won't see the clear picture until a good sort of 5-6 months later, which means that you're already behind. And if you're diversified, you don't have to make that call. You're not depending on that data to come out because you're basically spreading your, you know, spreading your spreading your risk out across the broad market.

Yeah, exactly. The, the, the mentioning of China is an interesting 1. I don't know if you can answer this just in terms of emerging markets and I suppose the reason why they're so undervalued. I think China has got a lot to do with it, to be fair, to make up quite a big proportion of the overall benchmark.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we do think EM equities are quite undervalued. It's also worth pointing out within EM as well, there is like a huge divergent China, I think the stimulus package that they announced. So when you look at our valuation numbers for EM equities, the stimulus package that was announced earlier this year, we think is actually quite beneficial from an economic perspective and should have a positive economic effect. Obviously we didn't account for tariffs coming from Trump at the time, so that could change things. But again, obviously given the way that the Chinese economy work and how much of A black box it actually is, they have so many levers that they can actually pull in order to try and sort of boost the economy. But despite Despite that, there are obviously some lingering concerns around the Chinese economy. But obviously, since we're in a place where we don't necessarily know exactly how much, you know, what sort of tariffs Trump is going to propose in the absence of that at the moment, we think that Chinese economy is OK in terms of where it is given the stimulus package that they announced. But I think another sort of point worth, you know, pointing out is like when you look at Asia as a whole, the outlook for Asia as a whole is actually quite positive in terms of returns. So when you look at some of the other countries within EM, within the EM Asia universe, the outlook for some of those companies is extremely strong, especially some of the EM value companies out there. But then you see this divergent where LATAM from a growth perspective is expected to be slightly weaker than Asia. So even though equities, EM equities are undervalued, there is this sort of, you know, difference in return expectations across EM. But again, if you're diversified and if you, you know, have exposure to the broader EM index, you don't have to worry about this sort of idiosyncratic risk that tends to pop up in EM from one region to another.

Yeah, agreed. I suppose the forecasts of returns, I know we didn't show them there, but the forecasts of returns for emerging market equities are actually quite high and going forward as well. So it is beneficial to hold when you're holding. I suppose a, you're taking a global approach to equity investing that it is beneficial to hold both development and emerging markets.

OK, listen, we're stuck for time. There are a couple of other questions that I'll come back personally after this call. Monique, thank you very much. I suppose we're just reinforcing the importance of staying diversified and ignoring the noise of which there's probably going to be quite a lot of in 2025, I imagine. So thank you, Monique, thanks for your support this year and we will see you again early next year.

Sounds good. Wishing you all a good end of the year. Thanks for waiting, bye.

And you're very welcome to the Standard Life webinar this morning. As always, thank you for taking time to come and join us. My name is Alan McCarthy and today I'm joined by Roy McDonald, our Investment Development Manager. In a few moments, I'm going to introduce you to Monique Dear, who's dialing in from Vanguard in London. Before we start, just a quick word of appreciation. 2024 has been another successful year for Standard Life. Our partnership approach with advisors continues to work very well. So thank you for that support. There's a lot more we need to do to ensure we're getting good outcomes for your customers, and we really appreciate the day-to-day interaction and support from our advice partners.

The webinar today aims to deliver on three things. First, we're going to hear from Vanguard and get their economic outlook for the rest of 2024 and beyond. We're also excited to announce the launch of the new Vanguard Smaller Companies Fund tomorrow. Roy will take us through some details on that. We're really proud of our partnership with Vanguard, which has been going on for 10 years. Every couple of years, we look at the proposition and see what we can add. Three years ago, we launched the global index funds, and those funds have been doing really well from both a customer and advisor point of view. We'll touch on the three-year anniversary, how they've performed, and the key attributes of those funds going forward.

Roy: We've had this partnership with Vanguard for 10 years, but three years ago, we launched global index funds based on advisor feedback and customer demand. Initially, we launched Vanguard funds on the platform back in 2018 as standalone index trackers. Advisors built their own portfolios for clients. Over time, there was more demand for multi-asset funds with Vanguard components that did all the heavy lifting. We launched the global index funds three years ago, and they proved extremely popular. There's been a fundamental shift from active to passive investing. Year-to-date, 53% of the flows coming into Standard Life are going into passive funds, which is a huge change over a short period of time.

Alan: What's driving that shift?

Roy: There are a couple of things driving it. First, the simplicity of passive investing. The global index funds are outwardly simple yet sophisticated. There's no need to explain complex strategic or tactical asset allocation decisions. You're just buying the market, which means returns in line with the market. Second, diversification is key. For example, the global index 60 fund, our most popular fund, has over 3000 securities, exposure to 47 countries, and 11 sectors. On the bond side, the Vanguard global bond index fund has 15,000 securities, with a 65% allocation to government bonds and 35% to corporate bonds. In total, you have 18,000 securities in a 60/40 portfolio.

Alan: What about ongoing rebalancing?

Roy: Ongoing rebalancing is extremely important. If you have a fund whose objective is to track an index, you can't afford to have a drift. We regularly rebalance with very strict thresholds. If the total equity component breaches 75 basis points, it triggers rebalancing. This can happen day-to-day based on market movements.

Alan: Anything else driving the shift?

Roy: Affordability. Costs matter, and the global index funds can be accessed at 45 basis points. The AMC is the TER, which means that is the total cost to the client from a unit perspective. We've seen a big drive with advisor business, particularly with the EPP to Pure transition. Advisors are looking to rotate their book of assets to Pure at a relatively low cost.

Alan: What about performance?

Roy: The performance has been strong. For example, the global index 60 fund has delivered a return of approximately 6% per annum over the last three years. The global index 100 fund has delivered a return of approximately 10% per annum over the last five years. These funds have performed well despite the challenging market conditions.

Alan: We're also launching a new Vanguard fund tomorrow. Can you give us some context on that?

Roy: Yes, we're launching the Standard Life Vanguard Global Small Cap Index fund. This fund tracks the MSCI World Small Cap Index, giving exposure to 4000 securities in 23 developed markets. It's the 8th standalone index tracker we've added to the platform and the 5th equity fund. Small caps are characterized by more volatility, but over the long term, they deliver alpha. This fund offers a lower-cost entry into this asset class.

Alan: Thank you, Roy. Now, let's hear from Monique Dear, Head of Multi Asset Specialism at Vanguard. Monique, you're very welcome. Can you give us Vanguard's economic outlook for the rest of 2024?

Monique: Thank you, Alan. It's good to be here. Before we jump into the outlook for the rest of 2024, let's touch on what happened in the second quarter and in August. In the second quarter, equities continued to outperform bonds in a multi-asset portfolio, particularly US and emerging market equities. Japanese equities had a negative quarter, driven by the depreciation of the Japanese yen. On the bond side, bonds lagged in performance, but we saw a reversal of this trend in August due to weaker economic data from the US.

Monique: In August, Japanese equity investors saw a lot of volatility, driven by technical aspects of currency trading. The Bank of Japan intervened to strengthen the yen, leading to equity price falls. On the bond side, we saw a positive upswing due to weaker economic data from the US and repricing of Fed market expectations.

Monique: Looking at valuations, US equities are quite overstretched and overvalued, driven by the tech sector. UK equities have moved into overvalued territory, while European equities remain more attractive. EM equities are undervalued, with some dispersion in growth and valuation expectations within EM. On the bond side, US bonds are undervalued, while UK, Euro, and global bonds are fairly valued.

Monique: Fixed income has seen a lot of volatility due to changing interest rate expectations. Higher yields mean that prices come down, but they also mean that the potential for return from a bond-heavy portfolio has increased. Investment-grade bonds are offering higher yields than some equity dividend yields, which is a dynamic we haven't seen for a long time.

Monique: For multi-asset investors, we expect returns of about 3 to 3.5% for bond-heavy portfolios. The return outlook is strong and positive. It's a good time to be invested in multi-asset, to be diversified, and to be disciplined.

Alan: Thank you, Monique. There are a couple of questions for you and Roy. Monique, do you expect US equities to continue outperforming?

Monique: We think US equities are stretched in terms of valuations, so we expect a correction. The dollar may also see a correction. We expect other equity markets to outperform in the short term, but US equities will recover in the longer term.

Alan: What's your view on emerging market equities?

Monique: We think there are great opportunities in emerging markets, particularly in Asia. EM is likely to lead the rate-cutting cycle and play an increasingly important role in the global supply chain. We remain positive on EM growth and outlook.

Alan: How many interest rate cuts do you expect the ECB to make this year?

Monique: We expect the ECB to cut rates down to 3.25% by the end of the year, which is about 1.5% in cuts this year. The magnitude and frequency of the cuts will vary, but we do expect them to cut rates this year due to the substantial decrease in inflation and the still-muted growth in Europe.

Alan: Last question, Monique. In relation to bonds, is your expectation of returning bonds better because of higher coupons being issued now? Does the fact that the funds already hold legacy bonds with lower coupons mean that these bonds will be a drag on the funds?

Monique: No, I wouldn't say that. Even within the global index fund, there is constant rebalancing. The underlying index funds that the global index fund is invested in, particularly the bond one, rebalance quite frequently. So new bonds coming into the index do come within the portfolios, which helps from a return perspective. The compounded effect of higher coupons is one element, but not the only one driving bond returns. Entering a recessionary environment, we still expect cuts, which usually means positive action in terms of price and performance. Additionally, as markets get volatile or expectations of interest rate cuts rise, you'll see a flight to quality, with investors going into higher quality bonds. There are multiple reasons why bonds are attractive right now, with coupons being a significant part of that.

Alan: Thanks, Monique. Brendan, there are two similar questions for you. First, are the equity indices equal-weighted or weighted by market cap of the underlying stocks?

Brendan: The equity indices and bond components are driven by market capitalization. For the 60/40 fund, the two equity elements are the global stock index and the Global Emerging Markets index. The split between global stock and emerging markets is defined on a market capitalization basis, currently about 90/10. On the bond side, the mix between government bonds and corporate bonds is about 2:1 from a market capitalization perspective. There are no active investment decisions being taken; it's all passive and driven by market capitalization.

Alan: That answers the second question, which is what determines the mix between equities and bonds. Just to clarify, what is the current yield of the Vanguard global bond fund?

Brendan: The yield is 4% on the global bond fund.

Alan: Brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Brendan. Thank you, folks, for joining us for the second webinar in our series. The third one, focusing on Second Life, will be on the 16th of May. You'll find registration on our website or through your business manager. Please send any feedback you find useful. We will be sending out CPD certificates over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you. Take care. Bye-bye.

 

Good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome to the second webinar of our Spring series. As always, thank you for taking the time to come and join us this morning. My name is Alan McCarthy and in a few moments, I'm going to be introducing Brenda Barr, our Head of Investment Solutions. I'm also joined today by Monique Dear, Head of Multi Asset Specialism in Vanguard. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. This is the second webinar in our series. The series is focused on looking at three of the key pillars of our retirement specialism. Number one was looking at ultra enrollment. If that's something you want to review, there is a link in our resources page. You can go into that and have a look at the playback. The third webinar, which will be on the 16th of May, is going to focus on Second Life where Joe, Anna Cody, and Tara O'Donoghue will be looking at some of the research we've been going through and key considerations to make this a very holistic and broad conversation that customers need to consider as they journey to a true retirement.

Today is about market outlook and we're also looking at the global index funds. As mentioned, I'm joined by Brendan. Brendan, about 10 years ago now, we were working with Vanguard in terms of sponsors or in terms of partnership, we introduced the individual index funds. But three years ago, we made a change and we brought in the global index funds. Might give us a bit of context as to why we did that and how that's been going.

Brendan: Yeah. Thanks, Alan. Before we go into the detail of the global index funds, it's important to say there's been a significant increase in demand for index funds and passive funds, not just in Ireland but all over the world for the last 10-15 years. That's driven by a number of factors. One is price, as retail investors are becoming more price-sensitive. Index funds tend to offer more competitive value than active funds. Another factor is performance and simplicity. With index funds, you're getting the index performance, and customers tend to understand index funds more than active funds.

In 2021, we were looking at the advisor market and saw a big demand for individual index funds. One strong feedback we got from advisors was to consider setting up multi-asset funds that would allow us to sell individual funds with different Vanguard funds of 100% investment in Vanguard funds, but with a clear message so that the advisor doesn't have to worry about rebalancing the portfolios. So we set up the global index funds three years ago, and these are very customer-friendly solutions. We have five funds, each with a number determined by the equity content of each fund. For example, the Global Index Fund 20 has a mix of 20% equities and 80% bonds, and this goes up to the Global Index Fund 80, which has 80% equities and 20% bonds. We also have a pure equity fund at the end.

One of the strongest benefits of these funds is the continuous rebalancing within the five funds. If you invest in the Global Index Fund 80 today, you will have 80% in equities, and this will remain constant throughout the period due to continuous rebalancing.

Alan: So, Brendan, these are fixed, so they don't change and they're rebalanced on a continuous basis. What type of basis is this?

Brendan: They're rebalanced on a continuous basis. As cash flow goes into the fund, it helps with the rebalancing. If the total equity component was to breach 75 basis points, we would then rebalance the portfolio back to the original state. This is the same across all five portfolios.

Alan: When you look at these five portfolios, typically what we see is a lot going into the 60/40, which is the balanced approach. But when customers and advisors see this, it does look a little bit simple. Can you talk about what's behind that 60/40 because there's a lot in there?

Brendan: Yes, let's get under the hood of the portfolio. The Global Index Fund 60 is the most popular fund across the five funds, with about 40% of the flows going into it. The pie chart shows that 100% of the money has gone into Vanguard index funds. The bond element is 40% of the portfolio, invested in the Vanguard global bond fund, which is very diversified across government and corporate bonds. There are 14,000 securities in the bond fund alone. The equity component is made up of the global stock index fund and the emerging markets index fund, with about 10% of the total equity in emerging markets.

Alan: When you mentioned nearly 3000 equities, I understand that it's spread across those equities and the return is the return. But when you're looking at 14,000 bonds, how do we calculate the yield on something like that?

Brendan: The current yield on the global bond fund is about 4%. Starting with a bond yield of 4% on the defensive part of the portfolio is a good place to start, especially when most commentators are forecasting a reduction in interest rates and bond yields over the next 5 to 10 years.

Alan: From a messaging point of view, what are the key messages to advisors and customers when looking at the global index funds?

Brendan: Simplicity is a key message. There's been a big drive towards simplicity in recent years. Global diversification is another key message. Going into any of the portfolios, you're getting access to 17,000 securities. The rebalancing within the funds provides certainty of asset mix in the future. Performance is also important, as these funds are invested in Vanguard index funds with very low tracking error. Lastly, competitive pricing is a key message. These funds are available from 45 basis points, which is very competitive.

Alan: We've seen a big change in advisor and customer behavior in the last two to three years. Brendan, the investment solutions team is available to all advisors to go through any queries. Now, I'm going to hand over to Monique. Monique, you're very welcome and thank you for joining us. You're going to talk to us about what we can expect in 2024 and Vanguard's house view on where markets are going to go.

Monique: Thanks, Alan. A lot has been going on, and it's been uncertain and volatile in the last few years. Q1 2023 was a strong year, but Q2 and Q3 were not as great. However, Q4 2023 turned all the annual returns into positive territory.

Looking at Q1 2024, we've seen continuous outperformance by equities, driven by the US. The outlook for bonds is quite strong, the best it's been for a long time. Inflation has come down, but the last mile remains tough. The Magnificent 7 continued their strong run, raising concerns about concentration risk within the US equity index. The US economy has shown extreme resilience despite rate hikes, largely due to fiscal support during the pandemic.

Looking at the last 10 to 15 years, there hasn't been much persistence in asset class performance. Global diversification is important. We think there's a higher chance of a mild recession, particularly in the UK and Europe. Volatility is here to stay, and market timing will be even more difficult. Improved long-term returns are expected, especially for bond investors.

The relationship between equities and bonds will play out again as we see a rate-cutting cycle during a mild recession. Bonds usually outperform with global equities underperforming during a recession. We think global equities may outperform US equities due to stretched valuations in the US.

Looking at different equity markets, we think emerging market equities are undervalued, particularly in Asia. Euro area and Japan are fairly valued, while UK and US equities are stretched in terms of valuations. Market concentration in the US has been growing, raising concerns. Diversification is more important than ever.

Fixed income is looking very exciting. Higher yields provide a cushion when there is a downturn in equity markets. The compounded effect of higher coupons on new bonds is positive for long-term returns. Bonds are in a better position than they have been in a long time.

The main message is to avoid style tilts. Markets are uncertain and volatile, so the best approach is to be diversified. Historically, a 60/40 portfolio has delivered average annualized returns of close to 8%. It's time in the market that counts more than trying to time the market.

For multi-asset investors, we expect returns of about 3 to 3.5% for bond-heavy portfolios. The return outlook is strong and positive. It's a good time to be invested in multi-asset, to be diversified, and to be disciplined.

Alan: Thank you, Monique. There are a couple of questions for you and Brendan. Monique, you mentioned the resilience of the US market. Do you expect US equities to continue outperforming?

Monique: We think US equities are stretched in terms of valuations, so we expect a correction. The dollar may also see a correction. We expect other equity markets to outperform in the short term, but US equities will recover in the longer term.

Alan: What's your view on emerging market equities?

Monique: We think there are great opportunities in emerging markets, particularly in Asia. EM is likely to lead the rate-cutting cycle and play an increasingly important role in the global supply chain. We remain positive on EM growth and outlook.

Alan: How many interest rate cuts do you expect the ECB to make this year?

Monique: We expect the ECB to cut rates down to 3.25% by the end of the year, by the end of the year. That's about 1.5% in cuts this year. The magnitude and frequency of the cuts will vary, but we do expect them to cut rates this year due to the substantial decrease in inflation and the still-muted growth in Europe.

Alan: Last question, Monique. In relation to bonds, is your expectation of returning bonds better because of higher coupons being issued now? Does the fact that the funds already hold legacy bonds with lower coupons mean that these bonds will be a drag on the funds?

Monique: No, I wouldn't say that. Even within the global index fund, there is constant rebalancing. The underlying index funds that the global index fund is invested in, particularly the bond one, rebalance quite frequently. So new bonds coming into the index do come within the portfolios, which helps from a return perspective. The compounded effect of higher coupons is one element, but not the only one driving bond returns. Entering a recessionary environment, we still expect cuts, which usually means positive action in terms of price and performance. Additionally, as markets get volatile or expectations of interest rate cuts rise, you'll see a flight to quality, with investors going into higher quality bonds. There are multiple reasons why bonds are attractive right now, with coupons being a significant part of that.

Alan: Thanks, Monique. Brendan, there are two similar questions for you. First, are the equity indices equal-weighted or weighted by market cap of the underlying stocks?

Brendan: The equity indices and bond components are driven by market capitalization. For the 60/40 fund, the two equity elements are the global stock index and the Global Emerging Markets index. The split between global stock and emerging markets is defined on a market capitalization basis, currently about 90/10. On the bond side, the mix between government bonds and corporate bonds is about 2:1 from a market capitalization perspective. There are no active investment decisions being taken; it's all passive and driven by market capitalization.

Alan: That answers the second question, which is what determines the mix between equities and bonds. Just to clarify, what is the current yield of the Vanguard global bond fund?

Brendan: The yield is 4% on the global bond fund.

Alan: Brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Brendan. Thank you, folks, for joining us for the second webinar in our series. The third one, focusing on Second Life, will be on the 16th of May. You'll find registration on our website or through your business manager. Please send any feedback you find useful. We will be sending out CPD certificates over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you. Take care. Bye-bye.