In conjunction with the new 'simplified pensions phrase book' being launched, The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) has also challenged providers to improve member communications.

Ray Black, Managing Director of Money Minder Financial Services based in Sleaford, Lincolnshire said "anything that can be done to help the general public have a better understanding of pensions jargon has got to be good. Providers are well placed to design and build easy to understand literature to help with this process and I look forward to seeing what they come up with."

I have some reservations as to whether or not people actually read the information sent to them by providers as it is, however simple it is made, however, if it's concise and easily accessible, who knows, 10 years from now we might have many more people with a sound basic knowledge of pensions, how they work and how they can help them to avoid financial hardship later in their lives."

The first version of the phrasebook summarises words and phrases to be avoided when communicating with customers. For example, ?Trivial Commutation? becomes ?Taking your retirement pot as cash?. Lawrence Churchill, (chairman of NEST) also commented that the term ?default fund? could be scrapped and replaced with something members find easier to understand.

Nest chief executive Tim Jones said: ?It?s really exciting to get to the stage when we start to understand how we will talk about Nest.?

Pensions minister Steve Webb stated that: ?As we move forward with radical reforms to automatically enrol people into workplace pensions it is vital that we use clear and simple language to make that process as straightforward as possible.?

Source: Money Marketing http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/pensions/nest-says-default-fund-term-may-be-scrapped/1024434.article