The talk of the town this week was Chancellor, Rachel Reeves', maiden Mansion House speech, which she delivered to an audience of financial industry leaders last night.

The Chancellor announced plans to create 'pension megafunds' as part of a "radical" set of pension reforms designed to unlock billions of pounds of investment in infrastructure and local projects.

The industry broadly welcomed Reeves’ 'megafunds' proposal, highlighting the pensions investment review as an opportunity to accelerate consolidation progress.

However, some have expressed disappointment at the Mansion House speech's omission of reforms to defined benefit (DB) pensions.

The government also published the Pensions Investment Review interim report, which outlined findings from phase one of the review, put forward proposals to legislate for a minimum size and maximum number of defined contribution (DC) pension scheme default funds, and to legislate to require the 86 LGPS administering authorities (AA) to consolidate their assets into fewer, larger pools of capital.

In other news, it was a week of records, as UK DB pension scheme surpluses reached record levels in October, with an aggregate surplus of over £208bn, XPS Group analysis revealed.

In addition, the aggregate surplus of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes increased to £485.1bn at the end of October 2024, up from £476bn at the end of September, the Pension Protection Fund's (PPF) 7800 Index found.

A report from DLA Piper said UK insurers shared a "strong appetite" for continued UK investment through their pension books. However, a lack of market opportunities could limit their investment ability.

Meanwhile, just over two-fifths (42 per cent) of workers have reduced their working hours or plan to do so as they approach retirement, according to research from Standard Life, creating a potential 'income gap'.

Finally, progress on pensions dashboards was made as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its final rules and regulatory framework for pensions dashboard service firms, which was highlighted as a "big step forward" for the programme.

Following this announcement, Aegon stated its intention to launch a commercial pensions dashboard, a move they described as a "game-changer" for people's engagement with their pension savings.

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