{"id":75136,"date":"2016-10-18T15:42:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=babe5ca082fee3c59140640e8dfa9b95"},"modified":"2016-10-18T15:42:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:42:41","slug":"news-story-government-cancels-plans-to-create-a-market-for-secondary-annuities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=75136","title":{"rendered":"News story: Government cancels plans to create a market for secondary annuities"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>After an extensive programme of engagement with industry, financial regulators and consumer groups, the government has decided not to take forward plans to introduce a secondary annuities market because the consumer protections required could undermine the market\u2019s development.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few months, following a wide range of discussions, it has become increasingly clear that creating the conditions to allow a vibrant and competitive market to emerge, with multiple buyers and sellers of annuities, could not be balanced with sufficient consumer protections.<\/p>\n<p>Many firms have shown they are willing to allow customers to sell their annuities, but the government is clear that there will be insufficient purchasers to create a competitive market.<\/p>\n<p>While exploring this further, it has become clear that the steps that the government would need to take to create purchasing demand in the market would undermine other consumer protections.<\/p>\n<p>Consumer protection is a top priority for the government and we are not willing to allow a market to develop which could produce poor outcomes for consumers, such as receiving poor value for their annuity income stream and suffering higher costs.<\/p>\n<p>The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Allowing consumers to sell on their annuity income was always dependent on balancing the creation of an effective market with making sure consumers are properly protected.<\/p>\n<p>It has become clear that we cannot guarantee consumers will get good value for money in a market that is likely to be small and limited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Pursuing this policy in these circumstances would put consumers at risk \u2013 this is something that I am not prepared to do.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The government has always been clear that for the majority of people keeping their annuity incomes will be their best option, estimating that only 5% of people who currently hold an annuity would take advantage of this reform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has become clear that creating the conditions to allow a competitive market to emerge could not be balanced with sufficient consumer protections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}