Interactive Investor

He's already introduced some measures, mainly focused on helping households with the rising cost of living, and himself and Chancellor John Healey have some important decisions to make regarding the state pension.

Here joining me to discuss this topic is Craig Rickman, who is personal finance editor at Interactive Investor.

So, we're gonna start off with pensions, and specifically the pension triple lock, which once again, at the time of this recording, is front-page news as the British Chambers of Commerce has urged Healey to abandon the triple lock and instead increase the state pension in line with inflation.

It's called on the savings made from that reform to be used towards easing cost pressures on businesses to give firms breathing space to create jobs, investment, and growth.

And thank you for listening to this episode of On The Money.

We always love to hear from listeners.

If you've got an idea of an investment or a pension topic that you'd like us to cover, or you've got a question that you'd like one of the team to tackle, then do email us on otm@ii.co.uk. As usual, you can find plenty of investment inspiration on the Interactive Investor website, which is ii.co.uk. And we'll be back next Thursday, so I'll hopefully see you then.

[outro music]

In the previous show, you'll already know that this episode is the second of three conversations.

I spoke with Richard Wilson, the CEO of Interactive Investor, one of the UK's largest retail investment platforms, Anna MacDonald, Investment Strategy Director at Hargreaves Lansdowne, and Professor Russell Napier, financial historian, author,

and keeper of the Library of Mistakes.

Each one of our panelists selected their favorite Adam Smith quote, and of course, we discussed it.

And you all heard Russell on the podcast before, right? Yeah.

Yes, and he's brilliant, right? Yes.

Finally, Richard Wilson, CEO of Interactive Investor, who has also been on the pod several times.

So we are going to start.

Don't worry.

We've also got Victoria Scholar, which is a very apt name for a back to school kind of investment at Interactive Investor.

Victoria, good morning.

Morning.

That's

brilliant.

All right, John Walsh, founder and chief executive of the gut health food company Bio & Me and Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor.

Thank you both for joining us on Wake Up To Money.

Yeah.

So before joining the AIC, my principal experience was sort of 14 years with The Share Centre, one of the UK's retail platforms, which we sold to, to Interactive Investor during the pandemic.

Um, and, you know, one of the missions of The Share Centre was about democratizing access to capital markets and, and making investment, uh, easier, simpler for people, and something that everybody could, and arguably should, participate in.

Mm-hmm.

This is our deep dive into the realities of modern retirement.

We are pulling heavily from a highly detailed May 2026 piece by Greg Rickman over at Interactive Investor.

That great piece.

It really is.

Today, we're gonna be talking through questions that have been submitted for our editorial portfolio dilemma series, in which we tackle topics that are front of mind for investors.

And joining me to provide his expert insight is Dave Baxter, who is senior fund content specialist at Interactive Investor.

So Dave, we're gonna cover six questions.

Yeah.

But before we get to them, the majority of the correspondence that we've had for the series has been from Interactive Investor customers on our social trading network, II Community.

For those not familiar, could you provide an overview of what II Community is and why those listening to the podcast should get involved?

So it serves a handful of different functions.

Mm