The National Consumer Council has called for the Government to completely rethink proposals to get consumers to plan for their retirement. The Council said “sadly, very little has been done to meet people’s needs for basic financial advice and to improve their capability to make wise financial decisions”.
Our View
We completely agree with the National Consumer Council although this is what we have been saying all along. It is all well and good introducing low charged pensions so that people get value for money but they are still full of jargon and completely alien to some. Many consumers cannot afford financial advice but do want to save towards retirement for themselves. However, the thought of coming face to face with an adviser likely to sell them anything going and the chance of scuppering their chances of additional State benefits, quite rightly puts them off.
If the Government introduced ‘financial aid’ as they did ‘legal aid’ to help those unable to afford advice, more people would save for retirement.
We would also suggest that simple paperwork and simple incentives would work wonders.