Prime Minister David Cameron has threatened to crackdown on pension providers that fail to offer all of the retirement freedoms offered to savers in last year’s Budget.

Speaking at the G7 Summit in Germany, Cameron said he will keep a “careful eye” on providers after Friends Life announced it intended to take a U-turn on its decision to allow customers to withdraw money from their pension pots as and when they like.

"I think we need to look carefully at what's happening, and I can see my new pensions minister, Ros Altmann, is quite rightly already out of the traps and talking about this,” Cameron said.

"The aim of the reforms is to give people more control over their money, not to have a new way of charging people. And we need greater transparency in our pensions industry, as we've said before, so we'll keep a careful eye on this."

Pensions Minister Ros Altmann previously expressed her disappointment with the provider’s decision, saying it was a “disappointing” case of “failing to move with the times”

She said it is disappointing that one of the biggest pension companies had come to the decision to cancel its plans and to block customers from accessing money from their pension pots as and when they like over the age of 55.

"I find it disappointing that even the larger pension companies are not allowing their customers to take advantage of the new freedoms that the Government has introduced for them,” she said.

"The [pensions] industry has had over a year to prepare for the changes – and it is encouraging that some firms have risen to the challenge. But others seem to be failing to move with the times and are still acting as if nothing has changed."

Share Story: