V-FM Pensions #156: Standard Life's workplace decumulation guru Esther Hawley

In this episode of V-FM pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat to Standard Life's Esther Hawley about all things decumulation. We hear about Standard Life's approach to helping people with the knotty challenge of how to turn pensions into income including segmenting members, the anchoring decisions around essential versus discretionary income, and offering a guided “starter” solution rather than simply presenting the customer with a blank page.

We chat through the range of challenges in helping people at retirement particularly around couples and data integration, and, of course, touch on the total nonsense (Darren's words) of having separate regulatory regimes for people in contract schemes and trust-based schemes.

But underpinning it all is a sense of hope... the new regulatory direction on retirement income defaults gives providers greater licence to act.