As part of a significant investment into its UK business, Fidelity Worldwide Investment has initiated ambitious plans to deliver a new retirement service to its UK customers. This will be a broad based offering, with the aim of establishing Fidelity as a leading solutions provider in the retirement market. As part of this initiative Fidelity has appointed Richard Parkin as Head of Retirement to lead the development of its capabilities in this rapidly growing area.
Fidelity believes that the retirement market is in urgent need of innovation and offers a significant opportunity for asset managers and platforms to extend the quality and range of options available at retirement.
Commenting on the opportunity, Ed Dymott, Head of Business Development for Fidelity’s UK business, said:
“With a significant number of individuals now approaching retirement, we are committed to delivering a service which provides both greater choice and improved outcomes for this critical point in their lifetime. Unfortunately far too many in the UK are not currently getting access to the quality solutions we believe should be readily available to those approaching and in retirement.
“As an industry we should be providing much better outcomes for retirees in the UK. We have all focussed for far too long on the accumulation of wealth and should be doing more to provide support for those who wish to take income in their retirement. Over the next few years, Fidelity will be investing significantly to create a new retirement service which aims to provide our customers and their advisers with the ability to make the most of their retirement savings. Richard has significant experience in the retirement market, and we are delighted to have someone of his calibre to lead the development of this new service for Fidelity.”
Richard Parkin added: “For too long the default option for retirees has been to annuitise. Whilst we are pleased to see a greater adoption of open market annuity solutions which provide access to the best annuity rates, as an industry we can do better for our customers. We need to ask whether an annuity is the really the best solution available for such a high proportion of customers, especially as longevity increases and retirement lifestyles change. The inflexible and irreversible nature of annuities means they may not always offer people what they will need to manage the ups and downs across the whole of their time in retirement.
“The reality is that individuals approaching retirement need to look much more holistically at their needs and aspirations in retirement and consider how they best arrange all of their assets to support this. This may involve combining a range of products to ensure they achieve their goals in retirement. More importantly though, we need to make sure individuals have the right support in making these decisions.. We need to make sure that customers can access the guidance and support they need and that we give customers and their advisers the right tools and services to manage this. The investment we are making aims to deliver a new retirement service, which will provide greater choice and better outcomes for retirees in the UK.”
Richard Parkin will take up the role at the end of October but a number of initiatives are already underway and further announcements will be made in due course.
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