Disclosure of assets

Anyone with Gibraltar wealth management concerns will almost certainly be dipping into the very depths of their patience presently as they await resolution of their status during the protracted and uncertain times of Brexit negotiation.

The British Overseas Territory on the south coast of Spain, affectionately referred to as “the Rock”, has long been both an idyllic international outpost and a source of contention between the UK and Spain. This fact has been somewhat compounded by Brexit, with Spain using talks as an opportunity to lay down new demands over the headland’s status.

While Spain has agreed that it will not seek to push for full sovereignty over the territory during negotiations, the latest development concerns Spain’s desire to have the EU make specific provision for the future status of Gibraltar as part of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown that a record number of savers are now members of workplace pension schemes.

The figures show that the proportion of employees who are contributing to a company pension has risen significantly in the five years since Auto-Enrolment (AE) began.

AE was introduced in 2012 and makes it compulsory for employers to automatically enrol all eligible employees into a pension scheme unless the employee actively opts out. An employee is eligible for AE if they are aged between 22 and the state pension age and have a salary of more than £10,000.

In 2012, prior to AE, 47 per cent of UK employees were enrolled on a company pension scheme. This figure has now risen to 73 per cent in 2017. In other words, there are over 9.5 million more people saving for their retirement than there were five years ago, and it’s mainly thanks to AE.