Europe

UK - Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow is splitting its actuarial consulting practice in two to boost efficiency and cut costs.

UK - Schemes are losing around £225m a year by making payments to deceased members, the Unclaimed Assets Register claims.

UK - Scheme use of currency managers has hit record levels, figures from Mercer Investment Consulting reveal.

UK - Union members working for BBC Technology have rejected a second offer from the unit's prospective buyer Siemens because of continuing concerns over pensions and terms.

UK - The Faculty of Actuaries has backed government proposals which will prevent employers imposing a mandatory retirement age.

UK - Administrators of Federal Mogul UK will consider selling the business unless its US owners pay more into the firm's Turner & Newell pension scheme.

UK - Banco Santander has pledged to maintain Abbey National's pension arrangements if the Spanish bank's £8.2bn takeover goes ahead.

UK - Four new securities will be added to the Morgan Stanley Capital International Standard Index Series.

UK - The IT industry has criticised the Financial Services Authority for setting "extremely demanding" deadlines for compliance with its new regulations.

UK - Independent financial advisers have spent more than 100,000 hours online using Wealth Management Software's fairs manager product since it was launched two years ago.