Auto-enrolment

Lloyds Banking Group has seen its defined benefit surpluses increase along with strong performance from corporate pension provider Scottish Widows, its final results show.

Friends Life has launched its auto-enrolment offering for employers.

Schemes should design auto-enrolment procedures with a longer term focus than the staging date, Tesco corporate pension manager Karen Wake says.

Small and medium sized employers may attempt to offload auto-enrolment set-up costs onto workers via consultancy charging if they are not properly scrutinised, the Pensions Regulator chief executive Bill Galvin says.

Industry insiders fear that awareness of auto-enrolment remains alarmingly low.

The Department for Work and Pensions has proposed changes to TUPE rules to ensure employers receiving transferred members are not forced to pay contributions higher than the auto-enrolment minimum.

Awareness of and confidence in auto-enrolment has increased in firms of all sizes but small and micro-employers still have work to do, research from the Pensions Regulator says.

Randstad has appointed Now:Pensions as its auto-enrolment provider for its 20,000 agency workers.

The reduction in defined benefit schemes has resulted in an overall lower pensions coverage, research from Office for National Statistics shows.

UK workers are the worst prepared in the world for retirement and face a 12-year shortfall in retirement income, according to HSBC research.