The FCA has published Discussion Paper 18/1: Effective competition in non-workplace pensions (DP18/1). In DP18/1 the FCA is seeking feedback to better understand the market for non-workplace pensions, including whether competition is working well and if there are issues that need to be addressed in order to protect consumers.

Particular areas of focus in DP18/1 are:

• product complexity. Most pensions are complicated products and product performance may not become apparent for many years;
• the factors which may reduce consumer motivation and ability to invest time and effort in decisions related to their pensions;
• whether customers can identify and freely move to more competitive products; and
• fund choice and the use of defaults. The FCA is concerned that informal defaults may be operating in the market for non-workplace pensions that are not subject to the same protection as defaults in workplace pensions.

The deadline for responses to DP18/1 is 27 April 2018.

View FCA seeks feedback on non-workplace pensions, 2 February 2018