Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell comments:
“The rushed introduction of the pension freedoms means that, more than two years on, the Government is still fine-tuning the rules and regulations. It is important those with valuable Guaranteed Annuity Rates (GARs) are fully aware of what they might be giving up if they choose to utilise the freedoms, and providing personalised risk warnings at the point a transfer enquiry is made is a sensible approach.
“In order for these risk warnings to be effective they need to be provided in an easily digestible, jargon-free format. Implementing these risk warnings may be difficult for some – particularly legacy providers with archaic IT systems – but the priority has to be protecting consumers.”
The government response can be viewed here.