Even within an industry renowned for its heavy regulatory output, 2018 has been a bumper year for activity around consultations, guidance and policy. There were several big issues this year – GDPR, IDD, MiFID II – but the one stealing all the headlines was DB pensions.
I think it would be fair to say that the introduction of pension freedom back in 2015 blindsided most of us; consumers, regulators and advisers alike. As you know, the FCA usually likes to plan far ahead and allow for consultation on any big policy changes, but pension freedom arriving fully formed meant that the regulator has had to take a much more ‘suck it and see’ approach to guidance than we would usually expect. Inevitably, this led to almost constant rejigging of regulation, and ‘final’ rules that turned out to be not that final at all.
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