V-FM: The Pensions Podcast
The podcast from Darren Philp and Nico Aspinall talking all things pensions and investments.
Episodes
On this weeks podcast, hosts Darren and Nico are joined by Emily Boxall, co-founder of 2Mins, the financial education app that's on a mission to make money matters fun, engaging and accessible to everyone.
We talk about Emily's journey into financial education, what it's like setting up a business with her dad, and how games, humour and a cast of animal characters (including Petal the Hippo) might just succeed where traditional fin...
In this weeks episode, hosts Darren and Nico reflect on a busy few days at the Pensions UK Annual Conference in Liverpool.
From ministerial speeches to some lively debates on and off stage, there's plenty to get our teeth into.
We cover:
🏛️ Politics and pensions: what did Torsten Bell and Helen Whately have to say?
⚖️ Value for money: could the new framework drive herding, stifle innovation and create more problems than it solves?
...It's just hosts Darren and Nico this week as we take a look at what's happening in the world of pensions.
With the Pensions UK Annual Conference just around the corner, we look ahead to Liverpool and also discuss some of the big issues facing the industry.
We cover:
- Politics and pensions: are new dividing lines emerging?
- Value for money: are we missing the bigger picture?
- Retirement defaults: can we really deliver good outcome...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico talk to WTW Senior Director and Chair of the IFoA Pensions Board, Glyn Bradley.
We start with the big news of the week... the triple lock and the question of what the state pension is actually for, before getting stuck into retirement income.
Is an income really sustainable if it lasts for life but buys you less every year? Are pension illustrations anchoring people to the wron...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat to Will Sandbrook, CEO of the Centre for Inclusive Money (previously NEST Insight).
An expectedly wide-ranging conversation where we chat pensions for the self employed, adequacy, side car savings, joining up pensions and housing, hopes for the Pensions Commission and a whole lot more.
We also found out how Will got into pensions, the origins of NEST Insight, and also fin...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren chat to Brian Henderson, who last appeared on the podcast back in its early days in May 2023 (episode #19).
Brian returns to discuss his recent series of essays exploring the thorny question of how the pensions industry develops, and compares, retirement solutions.
Nico's news story is about ‘P(doom)’, sparking an in-depth conversation about AI in which we even ven...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat with the Founder of Nexum Pensions, Joao Cabral.
The podcast focuses on the work that Nexum is doing to enable people to have a pension pot for life, giving choice to where people send their pension contributions. Joao is a true innovator - having been part of the Octopus Money team - and is developing technology solutions to help make this a reality.
We also discuss indu...
The podcast is back from its summer break...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat through some of the key themes from the Government's latest (hopefully last?) consultation on the new VFM framework.
What's changed for the better? What's still cause for concern? What's missing? This season opener discusses all that and more.
In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat to dashboard guru Richard Smith, in the last episode of the season before we take a short summer break*.
As well catching up with how dashboards are progressing (we're getting closer!!), the podcast takes a trip up North from Kings Cross to Edinburgh as Richard talks us through the dashboard customer journey that is now being tested.
* fear not, we've got a couple of speci...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat to The Pensions Regulator's Ben Gunnee. As well as being an Arsenal fan, Ben is TPR's Executive Director for Market Oversight and is responsible for TPR's engagement and interaction with industry.
In a wide ranging discussion we chat about TPR's Corporate Strategy, DB endgame and surplus release, Collective Defined Contribution, and some of the key themes in DC, picking u...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico are joined (again) by Matt Roberts, Head of Alternative Solutions, at Fulcrum Asset Management.
As well as Darren ranting about FIFA and the lack of democracy in the UK, the podcast discusses resilience, value for money and why the future of pension investing is about far more than chasing re...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren chat to Mohammed Ali Yasin from Lunate Capital and Ghaf Benefits about the UAE's end of service benefits system and how it compares to the UK pensions landscape.
We chatted through how the UAE system has evolved from paying expats (a significant majority of the UAE's population) a lump sum based on years of service with balances sitting unfunded on employer balance sheets, to ...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat to Hymans Robertson's Head of DC Kathryn Fleming. Kathryn is a PPI Trustee and co-chair of the Pension Equity Group's Data and Research Workstream.
We chat about the work of the Pensions Commission, including the recent PEG report arguing that a financial safety net needs to be introduced to support any future reforms. We talk adequacy, fairness and affordability, and disc...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico are joined by SEI's Head of DC, EMEA and Asia, Steve Charlton.
Steve chats about SEI’s investment-led approach to running a master trust, and how the business has evolved from its roots as a technology firm into asset management and pensions. We cover some of the big issues currently shaping the DC landscape, including the role of AI and technology, Mansion House and the...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico are joined by Paul Maynard, former Pensions Minister and MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys.
In a wide ranging chat about pensions, politics and what really happens inside government, we cover pension dashboards, Mansion House, productive finance, consolidation, tax relief, the Pensions Commission and why policy often looks very different from the ministerial hot seat. Paul ...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico catch up on a whole host of topics that are currently making the pensions news.
We talk about Retirement CDC, Pensions UK Retirement Living Standards, the PPI Megafunds report, and start to unpack some of the key themes from the Pensions Commission's interim report.
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren chat to Sam Seaton, CEO of CAPA Data.
Through CAPA Data, Sam provides the data platform behind the Corporate Adviser Master Trust and GPP Defaults Report, which takes a deep dive into the performance, asset allocation and structure of DC workplace pension defaults.
We chat about pensions adequacy, auto-escalation, member engagement, legacy data challenges, and the risks of rel...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat to Scottish Widows' Director of Workplace Jerry Butcher.
In a very wide-ranging episode we chat about engagement, defaults, the use of AI, the FCA's Consumer Duty, the Scottish Widow's Retirement Report and the latest analysis from the Pensions Commission amongst a whole host of other things! We find out how Jerry moved from parachuting to pensions and, of course, find ou...
In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat with AF Advisory's Jasper Haak.
We discuss the "Wet toekomst pensioenen", the Dutch "Future of Pensions Act", which came into force in 2023 and refocuses the second pillar away from defined benefit / ambition towards collective and individual DC. We chat through what this all means for the Dutch pension system from a member and investment perspective, the transition of ass...
In this episode of the podcast, Darren and Nico catch up on some of the recent pensions news. In a surprisingly fiery episode we throw out some difficult questions for regulators and the industry, alongside a fair bit of ranting...
We cover:
* The Pension Schemes Bill becoming law
* The Pensions Regulator admitting that scale is not a guarantee of success
* Bank of England warnings about the AI investment bubble
* The upcoming Pens...
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