General Comments
The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) is the leading professional body for securities, investment, wealth and financial planning professionals. The CISI has a global community of circa 45,000 members in over a 100 countries and in the past year almost 40,000 CISI examinations, covering a range of vocational qualifications, were sat in 81 countries.
One of the charitable objectives of the CISI is: To act as an authoritative body for the purpose of consultation and research in matters of education or public interest concerning investment in securities. Consequently, we are supportive of initiatives which are designed to improve education about securities and investments, which includes an appropriate understanding by individuals of matters relating to their pensions.
Accordingly, we have read the consultation paper with interest and agree that it is important that people approaching retirement age, and younger, should be enabled to make informed choices about their pension monies. However, we do feel that a missing element of this proposal is the need for a greater focus on consumer understanding of their individual pensions and the potential impact on their lifestyles of the choices they make.
We acknowledge the work that the regulator has undertaken in drawing up these proposals, informed by their research, and accept that the proposed investment pathways would provide help to many, specifically those described as “consumers who were struggling with, or struggling to engage with the decision about how to invest the part of their pension that moved into drawdown once they had taken their tax free cash.”
As we stated above, we should like to see an accompanying initiative from the regulator, with the aim of improving consumer understanding and engagement, the paucity of which has led to this proposal. The CISI, as a chartered professional body with charitable status would be a strong supporter of such an initiative and would be keen to be actively involved in its delivery.