News in brief... keep a close eye on fees

⬤ Do you know how much you are paying your pension providers in annual charges and other fees? Providers don’t always make it easy to check, warns the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the chief City regulator, which has just announced a review of fee transparency in the pensions sector. In the meantime, however, making the effort to get to grips with charges is important. Higher fees erode the value of savings by far more than is often realised, because pensions are such long-term investments.

⬤ As the bitcoin price continues to jump around, the world’s largest pension plan, Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, has announced it is considering a move into cryptocurrency assets for diversification reasons. Should UK pension savers do the same? Regulators are far from convinced: the FCA’s rules make it very difficult for retail investors in the UK to buy funds invested in cryptocurrency. And pension providers are sceptical too. It isn’t possible to hold cryptocurrency directly in the majority of self-invested personal pensions.

⬤ The value of pension savings with which people have lost touch continues to grow. The latest estimate from PensionBee is that savers have now forgotten the details of £50bn worth of pension savings made in previous jobs or in plans they set up with insurers but stopped paying into. If you think there is the remotest chance of some of that cash belonging to you, make the effort to track it down. The government-backed Pension Tracing Service is a good place to start the hunt.