Unveiled, 44 centres across England and Wales, which will provide the face to face Pension Wise service, hoped to be an important service for investors. 

Geographical coverage for face to face though looks very limited, so take up may well therefore be low. Urging industry led solutions are still critical. The free retirement guidance will be a valuable tool to help investors identify what questions they need to ask of their pension providers and what decisions they need to take. Setting up the face to face guidance in time for April was always going to be challenging. The geographical coverage looks painfully thin, with retiring investors in Bristol having to travel to Taunton or Cardiff and other areas simply designated as whole counties such as Cornwall or Shropshire; have a look at a map, these are pretty big areas.

In reality, I think take up of the face to face service is likely to be very limited, with the vast majority choosing to go online or over the phone instead. Past experience of investors’ failure to take up their rights to shop around for a retirement income shows that even relatively small barriers can be enough to deter people from taking action, even when it is in their best interests. An hour’s drive to get access to the face to face service will probably be more than enough to put many people off.

Initially the matching of resources to demand is likely to be particularly difficult, but subsequently the Pension Wise service should settle into a steady equilibrium. In the meantime, there is still a critical role for the pensions industry to play in helping investors to find answers to the questions which will arise from the guidance sessions and in helping them to actually convert their pension savings into a suitable retirement income. The Pension Wise service has been set up by the Treasury to help retiring investors make good decisions with their retirement savings. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pension-wise-unveiled