Money & Wealth – In the News

Pausing pensions could be costly

Analysis1 has revealed that reducing or stopping pension contributions, even for a relatively short period of time such as a year, can have a significant impact on your final pension pot, with savers potentially being thousands of pounds less well off in retirement. Almost all (93%) of those surveyed said they are feeling the impact of increasing costs and inflation. Whilst 77% expect to have to make cutbacks on spending or saving, an encouragingly low figure of 6% said they would reduce their pension contributions.  

Healthy dividends  

UK listed companies paid out £37bn in shareholder dividends between April and June, up 38.6% from the same period last year, making Q2 the second largest UK dividend payout on record2.

Large one-off special payments were a key driver, but underlying dividends, which exclude these volatile specials, jumped by 27% to £32bn, boosted by weaker sterling. 

1 Standard Life

2LINK Group, 2022