Shopping Around for a Better Deal

Consumers lost £130 million by sticking with the same pension provider in 2016 New research finds consumers could be missing out on thousands of pounds in retirement by not shopping around for their pension product. This means their pension pot may not stretch as far as they hope it will, yet a significant proportion of people expect…

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Navigating Market Volatility

Protecting your portfolio from the ups and downs of investing. No particular investment consistently outperforms other investments. One of the most effective ways to manage investment risk is to spread your money across a range of assets that, historically, have tended to perform differently in the same circumstances. This is called ‘diversification’. While it cannot…

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Financially Unprotected

Dad’s putting their family’s financial security at risk if the unexpected were to happen. What would happen to you and your family in the event of unforeseen circumstances, such as the diagnosis of a serious illness or premature death? Worryingly, research from Scottish Widows reveals that more than half (53%) of men in the UK…

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Long Forgotten Plans

Managing your pension savings effectively and efficiently from a single pot. If you’ve worked for two or three different employers, it’s possible you could have a workplace pension from each of them. You might also have set up a personal pension, so they can add up quickly. Pension consolidation lets you simplify your pension arrangements and…

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Family Succession Planning

Taking advice early and developing a personal financial plan is crucial to meeting long-term goals Succession planning may be one of the most challenging experiences facing any leader, especially an entrepreneurial business person who has built a family business from scratch, so it is crucial to get right. For a family business, transition is a…

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Financially Unprotected

Dads putting their family’s financial security at risk if the unexpected were to happen What would happen to you and your family in the event of unforeseen circumstances, such as the diagnosis of a serious illness or premature death? Worryingly, research from Scottish Widows reveals that more than half (53%) of men in the UK…

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Inside The Mind of a Scammer

Tactics investment fraudsters use to deceive over 55s The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is urging over-55s to check that investment opportunities are genuine before they part with their money. This comes as new research[1], commissioned as part of the FCA’s ScamSmart campaign, reveals that only two in fve (42%) think they know how to spot a fraudulent…

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Securing Your Financial Future

Investing for major life events requires comprehensive investment solutions. If you really want to give your money the potential to grow and you don’t need immediate access to it, think about investing it rather than just saving. You might want to invest for major life events like retirement or paying your child’s or grandchild’s university fees. Whatever…

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Retirement Choices

How much time do you spend planning for retirement? The 2015 pension freedoms gave us greater flexibility over our retirement options, but the reforms have also made retirement choices much more complex. This means we need to start thinking about our retirement earlier. However, half (50%) of respondents aged 45–54 to a LV= consumer survey[1] didn’t think…

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Investment Wise

Learning from the past and understanding the present The key to successful investing isn’t predicting the future, its learning from the past and understanding the present. To give your money its best opportunity to grow, whether you’re just starting to build a portfolio or looking to rebalance an existing one, we consider some of the key questions…

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Dreaming of an Early Retirement

When you quit the rat race, will you really have the time of your life? We all know that we need to save money for our retirement, but knowing it and doing something about it are very different things! Younger generations may be bracing themselves to work well into their 70s – but the early retirement dream…

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Currency Fluctuations

Reducing the sudden ups and downs of investment over the long term. The summer months are usually the only time when we think about different currencies and their values as we consider what money to take on our holidays. Where should we get our euros or dollars? How much will we need? Should we purchase travellers cheques, cash,…

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