Over-55s losing tens of thousands in rip-off pension drawdown deals

PENSION firms are ripping off over-55s using the Government’s pension freedoms, the City watchdog has warned, as it threatened to impose a price cap.

A two-year investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority found savers accessing their money via the most expensive arrangements were being charged four times as much as those in the cheapest deals.

In the worst case, someone investing a £100,000 pension pot in a flexible access fund would be left £36,781 poorer after 20 years than they would be on the cheapest deal. The FCA said that pension freedom charges were “opaque”, meaning many of the 1.5 million savers who had so far accessed their savings under the flexibilities might not know they had been given a bad deal.

The regulator also hit out at the complexity of products, some of which can contain as many as 44 different types of charges. In a victory for The Daily Telegraph, which has campaigned to make the pension freedoms fair for savers, the FCA will now force pension firms to tell customers – in pounds and pence – how much they will be charged per year for flexible access to an invested pension.

At present they are faced with confusing pricing information, which means it is virtually impossible to compare investment plans in the market, experts say.

If firms fail to start offering deals with appropriate charges, the regulator said it

Japan in the knockout stages. One fan posted on Twitter: “I feel betrayed by Southgate. We are better than this. I’d rather win and keep winning.”

But Southgate said after the match: “We are not happy to be beaten but we had double objectives tonight. The knockout game is the biggest game for a decade for us.”

England’s wins in the first two games, including the 6-1 victory over Panama, have lifted the nation’s mood and could prompt a rush for employees to throw a “sickie” today. Businesses will be braced for staff taking more time off on Tuesday with the country bathed in sunshine and a winnable last-16 match to watch in the evening. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, even said yesterday that interest rates could rise a quarter of a per cent as the economy enjoyed a World Cup “feelgood factor”.

It is estimated that 20 million people watched the game on TV. A feared shortage of beer did not deter crowds besieging pubs or watching on screens set up in cities around the country.

England’s place in the knockout stages will prompt a scramble for tickets for Tuesday’s game. Some fans will stay on in Russia hoping to find tickets or praying for late availability on the Fifa website. Last week, just 1,500 tickets had been sold to fans by the FA for the last 16 – while 30,000 Colombian fans travelled to Russia.

For the fans who made it, last night’s result was a blow in what was billed the “Battle of Brexit”. In the run-up to the game in Kaliningrad city centre, Belgium fans had taunted England supporters with chants of “Brexit we love you”. England fans swore back.

But Nigel Booth, 55, a surveyor from Ripponden, West Yorks, at the game, said: “Although we lost, that’s better for fans. It’s a far better scenario. That saves us a lot of money and a lot of travelling time. Losing is not the end of the world. The result is irrelevant.”

John Sims, 47, from Bradford, said: “It’s a reality check to lose. I just hope it doesn’t dent our confidence.”

Tracy Gasson, 54, a community worker for the deaf, from Hastings, said: “It’s fine. We are saving ourselves for the next game. This also makes the draw easier and the travelling easier.”

“We can win this World Cup. You have to be in it to win it and we are still in it. Unlike Germany.”

Adrian Saragoussi, 56, a carpet fitter from Ealing, west London, at the game with his son Leon, 22, said: “It’s a shame we lost but we didn’t put out our strongest side.”

In England, firms feared a deluge of employees phoning in sick. Peninsula, an employment consultancy that manages absence requests for 20,000 firms, said it had seen a 36 per cent spike during the World Cup.

Each World Cup is thought to knock Britain’s GDP by some 0.05 per cent, according to Professor Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist.