Countdown to pensions freedom

It's not long now until retirees are given far greater freedom on how they use their pensions, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Not long now. In a mere eight weeks, George Osborne's pension freedoms will become reality: 320,000-odd people per year will have a new list of choices about how they use their pension. Anyone over 55 will be able to take as much money as they like whenever they want from their pot, subject to paying their marginal rate of income tax on the cash.

The reaction to this has been hugely positive and the financial industry is happily gearing up for a world in which retirees with large lump sums are looking for products to buy. Meanwhile, the government expects the cash-in option to be so popular that by 2018/2019 it will be collecting an extra £1.2bn from people withdrawing lump sums. But here's a thought: given what a good deal pensions now are, might it not be better to put more money into them rather than totake money out?

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.