Thursday 24 September
9.15am – 10.15am
Inside the dark world of criminality targeting workplaces and employee benefits … with Tech and cybercrime investigative journalist Geoff White
Inside the dark world of criminality targeting workplaces and employee benefits … with Tech and cybercrime investigative journalist Geoff White
Opening Keynote
Organised crime has become a shadow industry, mirroring the same structures, incentives and technologies that large organisations rely on every day. And as AI transforms the speed, scale and sophistication of cybercrime, criminal networks are finding new ways to target the money, data and trust that sit at the heart of workplace reward and benefits. The risks are now two-fold: threats to the organisation itself through ransomware, data theft, CEO fraud and cyber-enabled financial crime and threats to employees and pension members through identity takeover, social engineering, pension scams and fraud targeting lump sum decisions, beneficiaries and retirement savings.
In this thought-provoking opening keynote, tech and cybercrime investigative journalist Geoff White will take delegates behind the curtain of today’s crime scene, using real-world stories to show how criminals operate and where workplaces and their pensions and employee benefits are becoming exposed. He will explore how AI is not creating entirely new crimes, but is making existing fraud and scams faster, more convincing and harder to spot, while also highlighting the opportunity for employers to get ahead through stronger processes, awareness and defensive AI.
Moderator: Debi O’Donovan, Co-Founder and Director, REBA
Designing effective partnerships between employers, advisers and providers
Designing effective partnerships between employers, advisers and providers
Workshop
As DC pensions become increasingly important to reward strategies, financial wellbeing programmes and member outcomes, employers are navigating a growing network of providers, advisers and internal stakeholders.
This interactive workshop will explore what effective partnership looks like in practice, considering how organisations can maximise the value of their pension arrangements, strengthen collaboration and support better outcomes for members.
Through discussion and shared experiences, attendees will have the opportunity to consider:
- The evolving roles of employers, advisers and providers
- What successful pension partnerships look like across different scheme structures
- Ways to improve collaboration, governance and decision-making
- How employers can build momentum and deliver meaningful outcomes beyond formal governance meetings
- Approaches to measuring success and demonstrating value
This session is designed to encourage discussion, share practical perspectives and explore opportunities to strengthen partnership working across the pensions ecosystem.
Integrating pensions, savings and financial goals at every life stage
Integrating pensions, savings and financial goals at every life stage
Workshop
Join this practical and interactive workshop exploring how employers can better connect pensions with ISAs, short-term savings and housing goals to support employees’ financial decisions across different life stages. We’ll examine how to understand employee priorities, frame competing financial choices, design more joined-up savings programmes and measure whether interventions are improving engagement, confidence and outcomes.
Key discussion points
- Measuring engagement and behaviour change: What good looks like when assessing financial wellbeing engagement, savings behaviour and the impact of employer-led interventions.
- Connecting pensions, ISAs, savings and housing goals: Helping employees understand the trade-offs and connections between short, medium and long-term savings priorities, from building emergency savings to saving for a home or increasing pension contributions.
- Designing programmes around real employee priorities: Using workforce insight to shape benefits design, including flexible contributions, workplace ISAs, payroll savings, savings buckets and targeted communications around key life moments.
- Simplifying financial decision-making: Creating clearer journeys, communications and nudges that make it easier for employees to take action, improve take-up and reduce complexity for both employees and benefits teams.
- Building the business case: Evaluating the cost, value and impact of integrated financial wellbeing programmes using engagement, wellbeing, retention and savings outcomes.
Whole-of-life CDC: could it help solve the retirement adequacy challenge?
Whole-of-life CDC: could it help solve the retirement adequacy challenge?
Workshop
As employers take a more strategic view of their future pension offering, collective defined contribution (CDC) is moving from a niche policy debate to an option that reward and pensions leaders may want to actively consider. With multi-employer CDC schemes expected to be live soon, the question for employers is no longer simply whether to choose a master trust, GPP or trust-based DC arrangement but whether CDC should be ruled in or out as part of a broader review of pension strategy, adequacy and member outcomes.
This interactive, peer-led workshop will help employers assess whether whole-of-life CDC should be part of future pension strategy, exploring its potential role across accumulation and decumulation and whether it could offer a credible way to improve retirement adequacy and member outcomes.
Key discussion points
- Understanding whole-of-life CDC: What CDC is, how it differs from DB and DC and how it could support members through both saving and retirement income
- Assessing the adequacy opportunity: Whether CDC has the potential to improve retirement outcomes, provide greater income confidence and help address the growing pension adequacy challenge, or deliver more sustainable outcomes without increasing employer costs
- Debunking the myths: The that concerns need to be addressed before it can gain wider traction
- The strategic and practical considerations: What employers need to consider around regulation, governance, communication, provider availability, member understanding and whether CDC should be ruled in or out of future pension strategy
Speakers
Deconstructing pensions: flexible contribution strategies for real-life financial needs
Deconstructing pensions: flexible contribution strategies for real-life financial needs
Workshop
Join this workshop to debate the practical, regulatory and cultural implications of redirecting a portion of employer pension contributions into workplace ISAs or targeted home-savings plans. We’ll deconstruct the traditional pension model to explore hybrid contribution strategies that address employees’ short and medium term goals without undermining long-term retirement outcomes. The workshop will explore implementation challenges, communications and education tactics and the commercial case - showing how flexible contribution design can boost financial wellbeing, pension adequacy and support recruitment and retention strategies.
Key discussion points
- Balancing flexibility with pension adequacy: Assess whether hybrid contribution options could support short and medium-term needs while protecting long-term retirement outcomes
- Designing the right guardrails: What minimum pension contribution levels, matching rules, eligibility criteria and default structures may be needed to make flexible contribution strategies acceptable and sustainable
- Managing regulatory, tax and governance risk: Key things to consider before introducing workplace ISAs, home-savings routes or alternative contribution models, and how to de-risk pilot designs
- Targeting the right employee cohorts: Understand which groups may benefit most from greater savings flexibility
- Communicating value and measuring impact: Building employee understanding and trust and the metrics that demonstrate impact on engagement, financial wellbeing, retention and the wider reward strategy.
Ensuring default fund strategy is aligned to member outcomes
Ensuring default fund strategy is aligned to member outcomes
Workshop
Join this interactive, peer-led workshop exploring how employers can ensure their default investment strategy is genuinely delivering better member outcomes, not simply strong investment returns. Through practical discussion and shared experience, attendees will examine how to assess whether current default arrangements remain fit for purpose, define success measures that reflect long-term retirement outcomes, and decide when changing strategy is justified as workforce demographics, retirement patterns and member needs continue to evolve.
Key discussion points
- Review default investment design and performance frameworks
- Define KPIs linked to investment outcomes, not just returns
- Deciding when to review or change default fund strategy
- Structuring default investment approaches to reflect evolving workforce and decumulation needs
Navigating decumulation: Reimagining post-retirement outcomes beyond traditional DC
Navigating decumulation: Reimagining post-retirement outcomes beyond traditional DC
Workshop
With pensions reform accelerating and increasing focus on retirement adequacy and member outcomes, this interactive workshop will explore whether CDC decumulation and guided retirement solutions offer better outcomes for members. We’ll explore what employers need to understand before deciding if these emerging approaches are right for their workforce, governance model and long-term pensions strategy. Through peer-level discussion, attendees will explore the opportunities, concerns and decision-making challenges shaping the future of post-retirement provision.
Key discussion points
- CDC decumulation: What it is and why it matters - understanding the employer case for change
- Guided retirement innovation – how employers are assessing emerging solutions, increasing member support and what this shift means in practice for employers
- Choosing the right post-retirement model for your workforce
- From regulation to rollout: what employers need to do now ahead of the 2027/2028 deadlines
Closing the gap: Practical employer actions to improve women’s retirement outcomes
Closing the gap: Practical employer actions to improve women’s retirement outcomes
Workshop
The gender pension gap starts long before retirement, it shows up years earlier in the workplace. If we want better retirement outcomes for women, this is where we need to start. Drawing on latest research from the Scottish Widows, Women in Retirement report, this hand-on, peer-led workshop will explore the drivers behind women’s poorer retirement outcomes and why key life moments such as career breaks, caring responsibilities, divorce, health and family leave can have such a lasting impact on pension adequacy. Focused on moving from insight to action, the session will help reward and benefits leaders identify where they can make a practical difference now, while also considering the longer-term role of policy, governance, auto-enrolment reform and targeted support.
Key discussion points
- Understanding the scale and drivers of the gap: What the latest research reveals about women’s retirement outcomes, the impact of career breaks and caring responsibilities and why this needs to be treated as a strategic workforce issue
- Supporting women at key life moments: How employers can provide better guidance, conversations and targeted support around parental leave, caring, divorce, health-related absence and other moments that can materially affect pension outcomes
- Benefit design, policy and quick wins: The low-cost changes to leave, pay, and contribution policies that would most quickly improve women’s pension outcomes
- Benchmarking, governance and employer action: How employers can understand where they are today, track progress, learn from peers and identify the practical commitments they can make over the next six months to start closing the gap
The new employee benefit: why whole-of-life CDC cannot be overlooked
The new employee benefit: why whole-of-life CDC cannot be overlooked
Workshop
As traditional DC models struggle to guarantee retirement adequacy amid economic volatility, Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes are rapidly shifting from a theoretical alternative to a regulatory reality. Senior pensions and benefits practitioners face a critical window to understand this landscape before it redefines competitive talent retention. This workshop cuts through the noise to explore how whole-of-life CDC can bridge the gap between predictable employer costs and secure, pooled employee retirement outcomes Find out why evaluating it today is vital for your long-term benefits strategy.
Discussion themes:
- Blueprint for retirement adequacy: Discover how the pooled investment and longevity risk of CDC models can significantly boost retirement outcomes compared to traditional individual DC pots
- Strategic business case: Understand why leading employers are actively exploring CDC to enhance their employee value proposition and manage corporate risk
- Fact vs fiction: Separate the myths from the realities of CDC implementation, addressing regulatory hurdles, communications challenges, and operational truths
- Actionable next steps: Gain clarity on how to assess if a whole-of-life CDC model aligns with your workforce demographics and broader corporate benefit objectives.
Speakers
Midlife momentum: New insights and practical strategies to improve midlife retirement readiness
REBA’s latest pensions research results and highlights
REBA’s latest pensions research results and highlights
Spotlight talk
Huge sweeping changes are coming into pensions, spurred on primarily by incoming legislation and regulations. Behind this lies the ageing of the population, longer working lives plus the cost of living – meaning the way we do things has to change, including pensions savings.
This research report, launched at the Summit, will show what proportion of employers are prioritising challenges ranging from pensions savings gaps, employee financial decisions, and default investment fund performance, through to contribution levels, pension scheme governance and decumulation choices. The research will help delegates see how other employers are reacting in the face of new legislation and regulations, allowing them to sense check their own actions.
Speakers
Preparing for 2029: Pensions salary sacrifice and practical readiness
Preparing for 2029: Pensions salary sacrifice and practical readiness
Spotlight talk
With potential changes to pensions salary sacrifice on the horizon from 2029, employers need to act now to understand the impact on cost, contribution design, employee take-home pay and pensions saving behaviour. Delivered by a leading tax expert, the session will outline how reward and pensions leaders can audit exposure, model different scenarios, review alternative contribution structures, rethink communication strategies and build the governance and contingency planning needed to prepare with confidence and manage future risk.
Speakers
The future of master trusts: What TPR and employers can expect and demand
The future of master trusts: What TPR and employers can expect and demand
Spotlight talk
As the workplace pension landscape consolidates and evolves, this session will outline TPR’s evolving expectations for master trusts and what this means for pensions governance. Delving into how Value for Money will be rigorously assessed moving forward, moving the conversation past cost-as-a-proxy to focus on fewer, larger schemes, robust investment oversight and scheme governance, all leading towards tangibly improved member outcomes.
Alyshia will highlight the biggest strategic opportunities and challenges facing DC members today and will explore what employers should expect, and demand, from their pension provider to ensure their scheme remains resilient, compliant and optimised for their workforce.
Speakers
Designing effective partnerships between employers, advisers and providers
Designing effective partnerships between employers, advisers and providers
Workshop
As DC pensions become increasingly important to reward strategies, financial wellbeing programmes and member outcomes, employers are navigating a growing network of providers, advisers and internal stakeholders.
This interactive workshop will explore what effective partnership looks like in practice, considering how organisations can maximise the value of their pension arrangements, strengthen collaboration and support better outcomes for members.
Through discussion and shared experiences, attendees will have the opportunity to consider:
- The evolving roles of employers, advisers and providers
- What successful pension partnerships look like across different scheme structures
- Ways to improve collaboration, governance and decision-making
- How employers can build momentum and deliver meaningful outcomes beyond formal governance meetings
- Approaches to measuring success and demonstrating value
This session is designed to encourage discussion, share practical perspectives and explore opportunities to strengthen partnership working across the pensions ecosystem.
Integrating pensions, savings and financial goals at every life stage
Integrating pensions, savings and financial goals at every life stage
Workshop
Join this practical and interactive workshop exploring how employers can better connect pensions with ISAs, short-term savings and housing goals to support employees’ financial decisions across different life stages. We’ll examine how to understand employee priorities, frame competing financial choices, design more joined-up savings programmes and measure whether interventions are improving engagement, confidence and outcomes.
Key discussion points
- Measuring engagement and behaviour change: What good looks like when assessing financial wellbeing engagement, savings behaviour and the impact of employer-led interventions.
- Connecting pensions, ISAs, savings and housing goals: Helping employees understand the trade-offs and connections between short, medium and long-term savings priorities, from building emergency savings to saving for a home or increasing pension contributions.
- Designing programmes around real employee priorities: Using workforce insight to shape benefits design, including flexible contributions, workplace ISAs, payroll savings, savings buckets and targeted communications around key life moments.
- Simplifying financial decision-making: Creating clearer journeys, communications and nudges that make it easier for employees to take action, improve take-up and reduce complexity for both employees and benefits teams.
- Building the business case: Evaluating the cost, value and impact of integrated financial wellbeing programmes using engagement, wellbeing, retention and savings outcomes.
Whole-of-life CDC: could it help solve the retirement adequacy challenge?
Whole-of-life CDC: could it help solve the retirement adequacy challenge?
Workshop
As employers take a more strategic view of their future pension offering, collective defined contribution (CDC) is moving from a niche policy debate to an option that reward and pensions leaders may want to actively consider. With multi-employer CDC schemes expected to be live soon, the question for employers is no longer simply whether to choose a master trust, GPP or trust-based DC arrangement but whether CDC should be ruled in or out as part of a broader review of pension strategy, adequacy and member outcomes.
This interactive, peer-led workshop will help employers assess whether whole-of-life CDC should be part of future pension strategy, exploring its potential role across accumulation and decumulation and whether it could offer a credible way to improve retirement adequacy and member outcomes.
Key discussion points
- Understanding whole-of-life CDC: What CDC is, how it differs from DB and DC and how it could support members through both saving and retirement income
- Assessing the adequacy opportunity: Whether CDC has the potential to improve retirement outcomes, provide greater income confidence and help address the growing pension adequacy challenge, or deliver more sustainable outcomes without increasing employer costs
- Debunking the myths: The that concerns need to be addressed before it can gain wider traction
- The strategic and practical considerations: What employers need to consider around regulation, governance, communication, provider availability, member understanding and whether CDC should be ruled in or out of future pension strategy
Speakers
Deconstructing pensions: flexible contribution strategies for real-life financial needs
Deconstructing pensions: flexible contribution strategies for real-life financial needs
Workshop
Join this workshop to debate the practical, regulatory and cultural implications of redirecting a portion of employer pension contributions into workplace ISAs or targeted home-savings plans. We’ll deconstruct the traditional pension model to explore hybrid contribution strategies that address employees’ short and medium term goals without undermining long-term retirement outcomes. The workshop will explore implementation challenges, communications and education tactics and the commercial case - showing how flexible contribution design can boost financial wellbeing, pension adequacy and support recruitment and retention strategies.
Key discussion points
- Balancing flexibility with pension adequacy: Assess whether hybrid contribution options could support short and medium-term needs while protecting long-term retirement outcomes
- Designing the right guardrails: What minimum pension contribution levels, matching rules, eligibility criteria and default structures may be needed to make flexible contribution strategies acceptable and sustainable
- Managing regulatory, tax and governance risk: Key things to consider before introducing workplace ISAs, home-savings routes or alternative contribution models, and how to de-risk pilot designs
- Targeting the right employee cohorts: Understand which groups may benefit most from greater savings flexibility
- Communicating value and measuring impact: Building employee understanding and trust and the metrics that demonstrate impact on engagement, financial wellbeing, retention and the wider reward strategy.
Ensuring default fund strategy is aligned to member outcomes
Ensuring default fund strategy is aligned to member outcomes
Workshop
Join this interactive, peer-led workshop exploring how employers can ensure their default investment strategy is genuinely delivering better member outcomes, not simply strong investment returns. Through practical discussion and shared experience, attendees will examine how to assess whether current default arrangements remain fit for purpose, define success measures that reflect long-term retirement outcomes, and decide when changing strategy is justified as workforce demographics, retirement patterns and member needs continue to evolve.
Key discussion points
- Review default investment design and performance frameworks
- Define KPIs linked to investment outcomes, not just returns
- Deciding when to review or change default fund strategy
- Structuring default investment approaches to reflect evolving workforce and decumulation needs
Navigating decumulation: Reimagining post-retirement outcomes beyond traditional DC
Navigating decumulation: Reimagining post-retirement outcomes beyond traditional DC
Workshop
With pensions reform accelerating and increasing focus on retirement adequacy and member outcomes, this interactive workshop will explore whether CDC decumulation and guided retirement solutions offer better outcomes for members. We’ll explore what employers need to understand before deciding if these emerging approaches are right for their workforce, governance model and long-term pensions strategy. Through peer-level discussion, attendees will explore the opportunities, concerns and decision-making challenges shaping the future of post-retirement provision.
Key discussion points
- CDC decumulation: What it is and why it matters - understanding the employer case for change
- Guided retirement innovation – how employers are assessing emerging solutions, increasing member support and what this shift means in practice for employers
- Choosing the right post-retirement model for your workforce
- From regulation to rollout: what employers need to do now ahead of the 2027/2028 deadlines
Closing the gap: Practical employer actions to improve women’s retirement outcomes
Closing the gap: Practical employer actions to improve women’s retirement outcomes
Workshop
The gender pension gap starts long before retirement, it shows up years earlier in the workplace. If we want better retirement outcomes for women, this is where we need to start. Drawing on latest research from the Scottish Widows, Women in Retirement report, this hand-on, peer-led workshop will explore the drivers behind women’s poorer retirement outcomes and why key life moments such as career breaks, caring responsibilities, divorce, health and family leave can have such a lasting impact on pension adequacy. Focused on moving from insight to action, the session will help reward and benefits leaders identify where they can make a practical difference now, while also considering the longer-term role of policy, governance, auto-enrolment reform and targeted support.
Key discussion points
- Understanding the scale and drivers of the gap: What the latest research reveals about women’s retirement outcomes, the impact of career breaks and caring responsibilities and why this needs to be treated as a strategic workforce issue
- Supporting women at key life moments: How employers can provide better guidance, conversations and targeted support around parental leave, caring, divorce, health-related absence and other moments that can materially affect pension outcomes
- Benefit design, policy and quick wins: The low-cost changes to leave, pay, and contribution policies that would most quickly improve women’s pension outcomes
- Benchmarking, governance and employer action: How employers can understand where they are today, track progress, learn from peers and identify the practical commitments they can make over the next six months to start closing the gap
The new employee benefit: why whole-of-life CDC cannot be overlooked
The new employee benefit: why whole-of-life CDC cannot be overlooked
Workshop
As traditional DC models struggle to guarantee retirement adequacy amid economic volatility, Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes are rapidly shifting from a theoretical alternative to a regulatory reality. Senior pensions and benefits practitioners face a critical window to understand this landscape before it redefines competitive talent retention. This workshop cuts through the noise to explore how whole-of-life CDC can bridge the gap between predictable employer costs and secure, pooled employee retirement outcomes Find out why evaluating it today is vital for your long-term benefits strategy.
Discussion themes:
- Blueprint for retirement adequacy: Discover how the pooled investment and longevity risk of CDC models can significantly boost retirement outcomes compared to traditional individual DC pots
- Strategic business case: Understand why leading employers are actively exploring CDC to enhance their employee value proposition and manage corporate risk
- Fact vs fiction: Separate the myths from the realities of CDC implementation, addressing regulatory hurdles, communications challenges, and operational truths
- Actionable next steps: Gain clarity on how to assess if a whole-of-life CDC model aligns with your workforce demographics and broader corporate benefit objectives.
Speakers
Midlife momentum: New insights and practical strategies to improve midlife retirement readiness
