Over the past few days, the spotlight has once again turned to fraud and pension scam concerns.

In particular, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) urged the industry to take action to protect savers, after its analysis found that scammers have been impersonating members to exploit security vulnerabilities and gain unauthorised access to members’ accounts.

And the cost of these scams is becoming clear, with the latest figures from ActionFraud revealing that more than £17.65m of pension savings were lost to fraud in 2024, which TPR highlighted as an “alarming wake-up call".

Efforts are underway to address this, as Action Fraud has since launched a pension fraud awareness campaign, with support from TPR.

But some in the industry have highlighted the continued levels of pension scams as evidence that the government's anti-scam pension transfer regulations do not appear to having a marked impact on the number of pension fraud cases.

Indeed, PensionBee argued that there is "no clear correlation" between the number of flags raised under the regulations and the number of scams, calling on the government to review and update the current legislation.

In contrast, however, People's Pension has suggested that even greater member protections should be built into the pension transfer process, after its analysis found that projected losses from poorly informed pension transfer decisions have increased by half a billion pounds in the past 18 months.

It was not only individual transfer trends that were in the spotlight this week, though, as this week also saw several key updates in the broader pension risk transfer market.

Despite a slower start to the year, insurers remained busy: Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has already secured £5.5bn of new business this year, including a record £4.3bn buy-in with Rolls-Royce, while Utmost has written four deals worth £177m and is looking to enhance its offering further going forward.

Phoenix Group, soon to be rebranded as Standard Life, has also reported £3.2bn of BPA transactions year to date, with a single £1.9bn deal in July marking its largest to date.

Industry experts have suggested that, for trustees weighing their endgame strategy, the market looks both competitive and active, with defined benefit (DB) funding improvements expected to maintain the focus on endgame strategies.

Indeed, the Pension Protection Fund's (PPF) 7800 Index showed UK DB schemes in aggregate surplus of £238.9bn in August, with an average funding ratio of just over 128 per cent.

While assets dipped slightly on the month, a rise in long-dated gilt yields helped reduce liabilities, leaving many schemes well-placed to consider de-risking or full buyout.

And pension assets more widely have bee on the rise, as Thinking Ahead Institute’s annual analysisconfirmed that the world’s 300 largest funds now control a record $24.4trn, although growth has slowed and concentration continues to rise, as the top 20 pension funds alone hold more than 40 per cent of the total.

For the UK, a shrinking presence in that list underlines the global shift towards larger, consolidated funds, with DB schemes giving ground to DC arrangements.

However, the UK was able to hold on to its 14th position in the Natixis Investment Managers' (Natixis IM) 2025 Global Retirement Index, despite losses in the country's material wellbeing and finances in retirement scores.

All in, it’s been a busy week, reminding the industry that whilst headline reforms are still on the horizon, with the Pension Schemes Bill Committee hearing still ongoing over the past week, the need to protect members and deliver good outcomes remains paramount as 'business as usual' continues.

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