The Second Coming: Stakeholder Pension Plans

Dust off your stakeholder schemes – they could be making a comeback, writes Ian Luck.

The ghost of stakeholder pension schemes past is still with us. Some say it has haunted the pensions world since 2001, when legislation made it a requirement for employers with more than four employees to make a grouped stakeholder pension available to their staff, with the threat of a £50,000 fine for non-compliance.

This measure introduced over 300,000 new stakeholder pension schemes to the market. It would be a great achievement if it weren’t for the fact that the vast majority of these schemes have no members! The reason is obvious: membership was not compulsory and employers were not required to pay into the schemes. However, 2012 may change all of that, heralding the resurrection of stakeholder schemes in a new guise.