Retirement planning needs more flexibility

People's perception of pensions changes radically every few years. In the late 80s, company schemes ...

People's perception of pensions changes radically every few years. In the late 80s, company schemes were depicted as a ball and chain for example, and the public raced to buy personal pension plans with high charges. A more balanced approach took over by the mid-90s with people joining company schemes where possible and gradually starting to increase personal pension plan contributions to a sensible level. With the advent of stakeholder, in the last two years we have had the fantastic step forward of vastly lower charges, true flexibility and external fund links on most personal pension...