Lynne Peacock, current interim chair, will step down from the Royal London Board on 9 February 2025.

Hudson has extensive financial services experience spanning insurance, pensions and regulation, together with non-executive roles in the telecoms and house building sectors. She is currently a non-executive director at AXA SA and Chair of Guide Dogs.

Among other roles, Hudson has served on the Boards of RSA Insurance Group plc, Phoenix Group Holdings, BT, National House Building Council, The Pensions Regulator and Standard Life.

Peacock said: “Isabel brings significant financial services insight and an impressive board portfolio, including experience from other sectors. Her deep understanding of the key markets in which Royal London operates will be of immense value to the Royal London Board and its members. I wish Isabel and Royal London the very best for the future.”

Barry O’Dwyer, group chief executive officer, said: “Isabel is an excellent choice to be the next Chair of the Board of Royal London. Royal London is a customer-owned mutual and Isabel shares my passion for mutuality. I am looking forward to working with her to deliver even more for the customers we serve.

“I also want to thank Lynne Peacock, Interim Chair, who will be stepping down from the Board, and I wish her every success for the future.”

Hudson said: “I am delighted to join the Board of a company with a long and distinguished history of mutuality and a strong sense of purpose. Royal London’s commitment to helping build financial resilience is particularly important to me. I look forward to working with the Board and wider management team and focusing on delivering long-term value for our members and customers.”

The purchase builds on the firm’s 40% stake in the Responsible Group and will enable Royal London to deliver later life solutions and scale the provision of later life lending.

Barry O’Dwyer, chief executive at Royal London, said: “This transaction strengthens our support for advisers and customers as they look for solutions in funding later life needs. We believe this market has a lot of potential as it offers customers additional choices at retirement, especially those who have property wealth but insufficient pension savings to support their desired standard of living.

“Later life lending is complex by nature and requires specialist advice. Royal London is keen to play a role in ensuring high quality advice is an accessible option for those who would benefit from accessing the equity in their home.”

To read more on this topic, visit: Royal London makes senior hire as it eyes up private markets

Carlton Hood, chief executive for the Responsible Group, added: “We will work with colleagues at Royal London to bring the consideration of pension wealth and property wealth together for advisers and clients, and to ensure the advisers we support, and the customers they serve, are able to access the best range of later life lending solutions for their retirement needs.”

This measure proposes that a member of an AE scheme would have the right to choose which scheme pension contributions will be made to instead of auto-enrolling into the employer’s scheme.

Emily Campbell lawyer at Charles Russell Speechlys said that this reform is likely to be popular among members who will feel they have more control of their savings.

However, she expressed her concern of how employers will be sure that their members have taken appropriate financial advice before making the decision.

She said: “One wonders how employers can be sure that members will have taken appropriate financial advice  especially given the types of free investment choices offered by SIPPs, which sometimes lead to heavy losses and complaints of misselling.”

Great idea ‘in theory’ 

Jamie Jenkins director of policy at Royal London pointed out that while the idea of allowing members to choose their own pension scheme is a great idea in theory, he believes that it could lead to a pensions system dominated by higher charges, prolific marketing and higher risk schemes.

He said: “Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions has been a huge success story and the relationship between employers and their employees is pivotal to this.

“A ‘pot for life’ model would significantly undermine this dynamic by requiring employers to navigate an increasingly complex array of payments to different providers. Ultimately, it may disenfranchise the very group of people we’ve relied upon to deliver the successful rollout of automatic enrolment.

“If we really want to engage future generations in their retirement savings and address the proliferation of small pension pots, we should focus on a digital solution by delivering a fully functional pensions dashboard.”

Lack of engagement

Jon Greer head of retirement policy at Quilter also highlighted that the new proposal may take a while to gain traction due to many people’s disengagement when it comes to their workplace pensions.

He commented: “Though this proposal sounds positive on the surface and will be useful for those members who are keen to take ownership, it has flaws.

“The ‘pot for life’ would likely take a long time to gain traction, not least because the majority of workplace pension savers are largely disengaged.

“They simply trust that their employer gets on with setting up their pension through the auto enrolment process and they therefore may not be keen to engage with a system that requires them to play a more active role.”

Andrew Tully technical services director at Nucleus suggested that to make meaningful positive change to long-term savings habits there needs to be more engagement from people about why they are saving.

He said: “Our recent Retirement Confidence Index highlights we need more people who save more into their pension, to understand why they are saving and what for, and are empowered to save in an environment of trust and stability.

“It is worth exploring whether a pot for life can help achieve those aims.”

Currently, only 3% of companies are still in noncompliance and need to make required changes and only 21% reported that the transition was difficult and required “a lot of work” to comply.

About two-thirds of respondents have found Consumer Duty changes to be a worthwhile adjustment however when asked if adviser firms had mentioned Consumer Duty updates to clients, only 20% had sent out a notice.

Another 41% discussed changes when prompted by clients but the remaining 39% had not announced the changes.

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Jamie Jenkins, director of policy at Royal London, said “The Consumer Duty has prompted a great deal of activity from all areas of the financial services industry and, while this may have initially seemed onerous, it’s clear that it is making a difference to how firms operate in the interests of clients and customers.

“Financial advisers are closer to their clients than anyone else in the value chain, so they are very well placed to understand the changes needed to deliver good outcomes.”

Mike Barrett, consulting director at the lang cat, added: “If you believed the noise, you might conclude that advisers believe Consumer Duty is a waste of time. Reassuringly, our research shows a more positive sentiment, which, I think, reflects the advice sector’s transformation from an industry into a profession.

“Yes, there has been work to do to facilitate this transformation, however the intentions for Consumer Duty are hard to argue against. If the regulator can evidence proactive supervision, driving change and taking enforcement action where necessary, as well as helping advice firms understand best practice, we believe this positive sentiment can improve further.”

This appointment comes following extensive research carried out by the asset manager which believes that the current market and economic conditions will provide a supportive environment to develop this new offering.

Nicoll starts his new role from today and will report to Piers Hillier chief investment officer at Royal London.

He comes from M&G where he held the role of chief investment officer of private and alternative assets.

Hillier commented: “As part of our continuing commitment to deliver best-in-class investment solutions and services to our clients, we place significant focus on carefully assessing markets to identify where the most attractive opportunities lie and how investors can best access these.

“We believe that private markets have an important role to play in portfolios, with current market conditions providing a very conducive entry point for our business as we seek to expand our range of capabilities into this space.”

Nicoll added: “We are seeing tremendous growth in private markets and I am thrilled to be leading the buildup of Royal London Asset Management’s private assets business. Private markets, with their flexibility and innovation, are going to be a central part of market developments allowing us to transition to a more sustainable future. I am eager to get started and to build a strong private asset offering solutions for our clients which will work for them for decades to come.”