United Kingdom

UK - Annuity experts have welcomed the government's decision to delay tax simplification until April 2006.

UK - The former executive director of the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is visiting London next month to outline the dangers in the Pensions Protection Fund.

UK - Increased life expectancy poses as great a threat to the solvency of pension schemes as falling stock markets, the Faculty of Actuaries warns.

UK - Taxpayers will be forced to pay for the pensions of low to middle income earners unless there are greater incentives to save, new research shows.

UK - Alastair Hunter (pictured) has been appointed head of the retirement practice and a member of the UK Executive Committee at Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

UK - The Actuarial Profession is supporting the new Careers Guide to the UK Pensions Industry unveiled by Professional Pensions last week.

UK - Network Rail workers are poised to strike over the company's decision to close its final salary scheme to new entrants from April 1.

UK - Trustees must cast aside any hesitations they have about using swaps and allow fund managers to use them to match scheme liabilities, Pimco claims.

UK - Pension Schemes are putting the British economy in jeopardy by continuing to cut their equity weightings, London Stock Exchange chairman Chris Gibson-Smith claimed.

NETHERLANDS/UK - Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has been appointed by Gouden Gids, the pension fund of the Dutch Telephone Directory company, to run an equity index mandate.