The Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) explains that although UK workplace pension schemes tend to operate on a national basis, they want access to investment opportunities and service providers in the EU.
This is from an August 2018 briefing (pdf) from the House of Commons Library on the potential implications of Brexit for EU pensions
The report finds:
- Workplace pension schemes do want ready access to investment opportunities and service providers in EU and across the world, and this is where a strong Single Market has a role to play
- EU legislation has a direct and indirect impact on PLSA: directly, through pensions-specific EU legislation such as the Directive on Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (‘IORP Directive’) that have been transposed into UK law; through the regulatory activities of EIOPA; and through EU employment law, such as the Equal Treatment Directive; and
- Indirectly, because the costs of complying with the EU’s investment markets legislation (such as EMIR, MIFID, the draft Money Market Funds Regulation and the potential Financial Transaction Tax) are passed to pension fund clients by asset managers, brokers and banks
- UK pensions law is extensively intertwined with EU law, regulations and court rulings. There is no need to dismantle this framework – and very little to gain from doing so.
The Association of British Insurers have called on the Government to “make a clear commitment that it will seek an early agreement with our European partners on a high level transitional implementation period which will help avoid economic shocks to both the UK and the EU”.
It has also set out ‘five key asks’ for UK insurers:
- Securing a regulatory environment that is appropriate for the UK market
- Retaining the ability to passport out of and into the UK
- Closely mirroring the EU data protection regime to avoid a quagmire of complexity around how personal and non-personal data is protected
- An improved future migration policy that enables the employment of high skilled professionals from both within and outside the EU.
