Europe

UK - Returns on scheme funds held in with-profits accounts will tumble if plans to tighten rules on endowment policies go ahead, experts warn.

UK - Simplification proposals will do little to help stop the shift away from defined benefit provision, a new survey shows.

UK - NAPF chairman Terry Faulkner is predicting a period of further great change for the pensions industry during his second year of office.

UK - Work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith has admitted the government overestimated the security of final salary pension schemes.

EUROPE - Standard & Poor's (S&P), the global ratings agency, has launched a new European-based ratings service for fund of hedge funds.

EUROPE - A new pensions committee, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Committee (EIOPC), will be set up to assist the European Commission in adopting measures for implementing EU Directives.

UK - Former Unilever pensions manager Chris Lewin will head an industrywide steering group set up by the National Association of Pension Funds to boost standards.

EUROPE - The European Parliament last month voted on legislation to fulfill the last key features of the financial services action plan, passing two directives on transparency of securities markets, financial instruments and a third measure prohibiting...

UK - Quantitative equities manager Advanced Investment Partners has seen its assets under management break the $1bn (£362m) barrier.

UK - Hargreaves Lansdown's head of pension research, Tom McPhail, held on to first place at last month's UK Pension Awards after lasting the longest on the popular Bucking Broncho ride.