THE NUMBER OF people paying into a pension has increased by 17% since last year, but\u00a0just two in five are sure that their pension will provide a good standard of living in retirement.<\/p>\n
The new figures published by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) reveal that confidence in retirement outcomes is low.<\/p>\n
Only one in three people now paying into a pension are confident their savings will keep pace with inflation.<\/p>\n
Additionally, a significant gender gap exists, as nearly a quarter of women (24%) have no retirement arrangements in place, compared with 17% of men.<\/p>\n
Fewer women say they understand pensions (49% versus 63% of men), and women are more likely to lack confidence in the standard of living they will have in retirement.<\/p>\n
The auto-enrolment scheme, titled My Future Fund, commenced at the start of this year.<\/p>\n
Anyone aged between 23 and 60, earning over \u20ac20,000 a year, and was an employee without pension contributions being paid through payroll, was automatically signed up to it.<\/p>\n
Gr\u00e1inne Griffin, the CCPC\u2019s director of financial education, is encouraging people to review their pension and, if needed, ask for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cPension statements can be long, complicated and hard to understand so it\u2019s very easy to just avoid them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you don\u2019t need to become an expert. Book a short review with a financial planner or a financial advisor to check that your pension arrangements are suitable for both your current budget and your future hopes and dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most consumers (63%) have never had a one-to-one conversation with a financial adviser about retirement, according to the CCPC.<\/p>\n
Among those who sought advice, around a third did so through their employer.<\/p>\n
The research also found a low level of understanding of pension fees and charges among private pension holders, with a quarter reporting limited knowledge, and 6% unaware there were any charges associated with their pension at all.<\/p>\n
Employees seem to be more likely to contribute higher amounts to their pension if their employer is matching it.<\/p>\n
By the end of August, over 800,000 participants were part of the new auto-enrolment scheme.<\/p>\n
Retirement savings of over \u20ac550 million have been invested on behalf of participants, according to the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE NUMBER OF people paying into a pension has increased by 17% since last year, but\u00a0just two in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12156,72,43427,24646,61,60,1558,174,1611],"class_list":["post-624205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-auto-enrolment","tag-business","tag-ccpc","tag-consumers","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pensions","tag-personal-finance","tag-retirement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}