Claire Trott, head of technical support, Talbot and Muir:
“In the last 25 years the high for me has to be the Sipp leading the way in pension reforms. Bespoke Sipps have always been the first to implement the changes allowed by successive governments, giving the saver access to the widest options in terms of retirement and death benefit options. Sipp savers expect to be able to use all flexibilities from day one and the industry has usually delivered, and delivered with innovation.
The negative for me, was the regulation of Sipps in 2007. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be regulated. Savers should be protected from the ‘anything goes’ attitude that has plagued many a Sipp in the past. However, the constant tinkering and amendments to what we need to do, how we need to act without any hard and fast rules makes Sipp providers more cautious than they may need to be, which goes against why Sipps came about in the first place.”
Bob Woods, chairman, Mattioli Woods:
“Nigel Lawson gave birth to the Sipp in his final budget of 1989. The first schemes were launched a year later, and the industry has grown into a multi-billion pound industry embracing well over a million schemes. However, this unrivalled commercial success has not been a smooth passage. For some clients, there has been an increase in costs, and sometimes without a corresponding benefit in investment return. For others, self-investment without the benefit of advice has been a double-edged sword. The industry regulator, having publicly expressed concerns in its various industry reviews about some Sipp providers, has now moved to raise the bar of capital adequacy – the amount of capital Sipp providers must retain in their business, much like banks.
After 25 years, the Sipp has established itself as the pension vehicle of choice, but the name itself remains a contradiction; for most investors, pension investment also requires good professional advice.”
Greg Kingston, head of proposition and marketing, Suffolk Life:
“The new pension freedoms and tax rules from 6 April will mark the point from which savers start to think differently about their pensions. Differently on how they fund their retirement and how they can use them to pass wealth to their beneficiaries. That wouldn’t have been possible without Sipps paving the way, making pension income options the best thing to happen to Sipps and the whole pension market thereafter in the past 25 years.
The wide variety of investment options within Sipps has enabled advisers and their clients to achieve some wonderful things, not least with commercial property. However, the tragedy of that investment flexibility is how it has been abused by a proliferation of esoteric and unregulated investments, many of which have failed, ultimately to the great cost of investors, providers and advisers together. Sipp regulation has come in for much criticism, but one must wonder to what greater extent the Sipp market would have been infected - and investors harmed - by such scams without the controls that it has introduced.”
