What matters most when selecting pension providers?

Many investors assume ESG-labelled funds automatically exclude companies connected to genocide, apartheid, war crimes or crimes against humanity. However, a 2025 OECD review of more than 2,000 ESG metrics across eight major rating products found human rights indicators were absent from some products, while 68 per cent of metrics relied on company self-reporting. Joining this episode of FT Adviser Margin Notes to unpick some of this tangled sustainable mess is Mike Head. He was one of the first ethical financial planners, and is now senior adviser at The Justice Company.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Advisers are increasingly looking beyond headline charges when selecting pension providers. In this episode of the FT Adviser podcast deputy news editor Sonia Rach chats to Amyr Rocha Lima, managing director at Strategic Wealth Partners, and Max Gist, head of business development at The People’s Pension, about the latest trends in provider selection.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Margin Notes, FT Adviser speaks with Anesu Ngwenya, who was doing work experience with the FT Group over the summer. Having graduated with a specialism in data journalism, Ngwenya has come to appreciate the benefits of presenting data in a compelling and visually appealing way, as well as understanding the risks of not getting data right — whether that’s the way it is compiled, curated or controlled. In this podcast, she outlined some of the risks and opportunities that journalists and financial services professionals alike will encounter when it comes to data. The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Margin Notes looks at the risk affecting young people in Britain today - a double risk, if you like - of rising youth unemployment and low financial resilience among school and college leavers. When these two risks combine, what is the likely outcome for young people? FT Adviser editor Simoney Kyriakou talks to Lucy McIlroy, a philosophy and language student at Exeter University who has also been doing work experience on FT Adviser. The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights and dire environmental practices have been abusing the UN sustainable development goals to secure foreign direct investment.This is the claim made by the Human Rights Foundation after years of research into some of the least democratic regimes where, despite known issues, foreign investment has been growing.On this latest Margin Notes podcast, one of the report’s authors, Sergei Korotkov, an international legal associate with the Human Rights Foundation, talks about why it should matter to investors that these emerging markets countries are finding loopholes or paying mere lip service to sustainability.  The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Being an entrepreneur is always a risky business but for millions of self-employed people in Britain, owning their own business is not just a revenue stream but a life goal. But what happens when the money runs out? This is a question that is relevant not just to small businesses but also to large ones. How can owners mitigate these risks, or is insolvency the only solution? Joining us on this episode is licensed insolvency practitioner Julie Palmer, managing partner for the south-west region at BTG. The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“At the very point where people need advice, they walk away from it”. This was a stark point made by Gillian Hepburn, head of UK adviser solutions and sales for Vanguard, on the latest episode of Tea with the FTA.Speaking to co-hosts Vanessa Barnes, founder of Hannay Wealth, and FT Adviser editor Simoney Kyriakou, Hepburn expressed her hope that targeted support and simplified advice would be a “stepping stone to full advice”.This might help people who have never had advice and who need help investing.However, she said she was always struck by how many people have experience of financial planning and have just “left”, particularly widows who, at the point when they most need help, leave their husbands’ former financial advisers.“I talk a lot about the situation where too many widows leave the adviser and you have to hope they go somewhere else,” she said.During the discussion, which is the last in the six-part mini-series, Hepburn said it was important for the financial services industry as a whole to help the millions of people who could pay for advice, but currently do not, understand the value of such a service.FT Adviser and the Women’s Wealth Alliance have teamed up to create a mini-series of vodcasts. The WWA, a working group of the Consumer Duty Alliance, has been tasked with a twofold goal: to help bring more women into financial services and to improve the financial resilience and education of women across the UK. This is no small task, as our series of six interviews, called Tea with the FTA, outlines.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Companies that fail to get the culture right will fail to hire the right candidates to help the business grow and succeed, according to Jenny Segal, founder of Speaking with Images.Segal, a former actuary and asset management salesperson who has now authored several books, said it was important to understand the positive impact on a company’s financials of having a great workplace culture.Speaking on the latest Tea with the FTA mini-series, Segal said it was clear that if we love what we do and see the purpose in what we do, then we will perform better.Conversely, if there are terrible cultures, there is the cost of having to rehire and retrain.“It’s one of these perfect things, where doing the right thing results in a better outcome,” she told co-hosts Vanessa Barnes, founder of Hannay Wealth, and Simoney Kyriakou, editor of FT Adviser.Barnes pointed out that a discernibly “elbowy, aggressive culture” of a firm can put off both men and women from even applying.“But if we get the firm’s culture right, this brings its own rewards,” Segal added.FT Adviser and the Women’s Wealth Alliance have teamed up to create a mini-series of vodcasts. The WWA, a working group of the Consumer Duty Alliance, has been tasked with a twofold goal: to help bring more women into financial services and to improve the financial resilience and education of women across the UK. This is no small task, as our series of six interviews, called Tea with the FTA, outlines.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“She just blew me away and that was day one.” Gabrielle Beaumont still remembers the impact of seeing a “formidable lady” in a senior role as she discusses the importance of visible female role models to inspire the next generation.Beaumont, chief executive of One Four Nine, told Tea with the FTA about how role models are invaluable and have a big influence, but questioned how to get those role models out into the profession.Vanessa Barnes, co-host of Tea with the FTA and founder of Hannay Wealth, said advisers need to get better at showcasing the profession to show off role models.“We need to be better at using social media ourselves, so that we push out the rubbish and then actually land what we [advisers] look like and what it [the profession] looks like,” Barnes explained.In this video podcast, FT Adviser and WWA look at the issues affecting women, and companies, in the financial services sector.Though the survey revealed 93 per cent of female practitioners would recommend the industry to other women, very few of these had come into the profession knowing about the career from an early age, so there was an educational opportunity outlined in the study.Moreover, there was a “glaring disconnect” according to Barnes, where a cohort of women just did not want to take on a regulated role, and another did not continue progressing in financial planning.FT Adviser and the Women’s Wealth Alliance have teamed up to create a mini-series of vodcasts. The WWA, a working group of the Consumer Duty Alliance, has been tasked with a twofold goal: to help bring more women into financial services and to improve the financial resilience and education of women across the UK. This is no small task, as our series of six interviews, called Tea with the FTA, outlines.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing properly to two-thirds of the UK’s wealth owners is not a nice-to-have: it’s a commercial necessity.This is the view of Claire Blackwell, co-founder of The Next Stage. Blackwell has more than 25 years’ experience helping financial services organisations grow responsibly through stronger client outcomes, governance and strategy.She said over her years in financial services, she has experienced how products have been created and marketed “relatively cheaply” but almost in a “lazy way” that does not consider the potential full spectrum of advised clients.Blackwell told Tea with the FTA: “The marketing feels masculine, it feels just for the wealthy.“And then when it comes to marketing to women, the attitude has been to ‘pink it and shrink it’.”But when it comes to advice and money, people don’t want to see something that has been rolled in pink and glitter.The products and the quality of service should be the same; but what needs to change is the way in which this is marketed to different sectors, and when.FT Adviser and the Women’s Wealth Alliance have teamed up to create a mini-series of vodcasts. The WWA, a working group of the Consumer Duty Alliance, has been tasked with a twofold goal: to help bring more women into financial services and to improve the financial resilience and education of women across the UK. This is no small task, as our series of six interviews, called Tea with the FTA, outlines.The FTAdviser Podcast is designed to inform regulated UK advisers on a range of topics, covering investments, pensions, regulation and other key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.