London Stock Exchange boss Dame Julia Hoggett has called on pension providers to be far clearer about where they are investing millions of savers’ retirement funds.
Dame Julia Hoggett told City AM that greater transparency would help encourage pension funds to back more homegrown British companies and domestic assets.
“We need more transparency for pensioners and for those investing in the UK as to where their money is actually invested,” she said in an interview.
“Arguably I think one of the most valuable things for the UK would be for that transparency to be there sooner and more visible,” she added, saying it would allow tangible change to be measured.
The intervention adds to mounting pressure on Britain’s savings sector to accelerate plans to put more of their enormous portfolios to work in the domestic economy.
In 2025, 17 pension providers committed to investing at least five per cent of their funds in UK private assets and infrastructure under a landmark agreement known as the Mansion House Accord.
Despite the UK boasting the world’s second-largest pension pot, just four per cent of schemes’ capital is currently held in UK assets, one of the lowest proportions in the developed world.
Over the past 20 years, pension fund allocation to London-listed equities has fallen sharply, dropping from over 50 per cent of the average fund to roughly 4.4 per cent today.
The pensions sector has resisted calls for legally binding requirements to ringfence more cash for domestic investment, warning mandation could jeopardise their fiduciary duty to act in customers’ best interests.
Hoggett argued that offering pension funds and ISA savers tax incentives without requiring any portion of that subsidy to be reinvested into the UK economy made Britain an international outlier.
“Where the UK is forgoing tax revenue, and not asking for any of that money to be invested in the UK in return, I think that’s a genuine public debate,” she said, adding: “Most countries would not do that.”
Fast-growing private companies and infrastructure projects have found it increasingly difficult to raise large sums from domestic investors, forcing many to seek capital from overseas sources instead.
London’s stock market has shed dozens of companies in the first half of this year, with many plucked from the exchange by foreign rivals and international buyout firms.
The Association of British Insurers was approached for comment.