“The Work and Pensions Committee focus on investment charges in pensions is very welcome, however, the view that the industry only deserves a low score on charge transparency is unfair. The vast majority of trustees have the right information to make decisions for the best outcomes for members. Selecting the right investment for a pension scheme involves weighing up many different factors and charges are one important part of this. Our mission as trustees is to get the best results for members overall.
“Guy Opperman’s view that trustees have been timid in adopting innovative investments is simply not the case. Trustees have a wide range of investments available to select for schemes, even if we choose not to invest in some that politicians would like us to buy for their own reasons. It is overly simplistic to imagine that members will engage more if we choose interesting investments for them. All the evidence shows that members rely heavily on trustees to select the most appropriate funds and it would be foolish to choose a sub-optimal asset allocation in the hope of generating more engagement. On the Defined Contribution (DC) side it is far better for us to concentrate on getting the best outcomes from the default arrangements.”
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