If you left a workplace pension behind in England and now live in Spain, you could one day be offered a ‘pension for life’ on it. The catch is that the plans don’t mention savers living abroad, and Spain taxes the money in its own way.

Old pots are covered, not just new ones

Brits who left a workplace pension behind in England are included in the plans Pensions Minister Torsten Bell announced on Tuesday November 3, and not just people who are still paying in. Under the Guided Retirement proposals, workplace pension providers would have to offer a default pension, which is a ready-made income that carries on for life, whenever a saver asks to start taking their money.

The consultation says that includes deferred pots (old pensions left behind after changing jobs) and people already in drawdown (taking money out of the pot bit by bit), as long as they aren’t in a default pension already. Final-salary schemes are left out, and so are tiny deferred pots of £1,000 or less.

Savers could still say no

Savers could turn the default down and choose something else, and nothing would be paid out until they ask for it and confirm their bank details. If they never get in touch, the money would simply stay invested. 

For pots above £10,000, the default would have to keep paying for life, so taking the money out bit by bit would be unlikely to count on its own. Some defaults could come from new collective schemes, which pool savers’ money so nobody carries the risk of outliving their pot alone. However, the government’s response says the pension increases wouldn’t be guaranteed and benefits may fluctuate.

The reason for all of this is that around 46 per cent of first-time pension withdrawals in 2025/26 emptied the whole pot, the government says.

Nothing in the paperwork mentions savers abroad

The obvious question for anyone living in Spain is ‘does this apply to me?’, and so far the paperwork doesn’t answer it. Neither the consultation nor the government’s separate response on collective schemes mentions savers who live overseas.

It’s early days, though. The consultation is open until Tuesday December 22, with the collective schemes rules open until Tuesday December 15, and the indicative timetable has providers complying from summer 2029. Those dates could still change. 

Spain will tax the money in its own way

Unfortunately for brits in Spain, Britain’s plan can’t change Spanish tax rules. Under the UK-Spain tax treaty, most UK pension income, including lump sums, received by someone living in Spain is taxed here, and the UK’s 25 per cent tax-free lump sum has no Spanish equivalent once you’re a tax resident. 

So emptying a whole pot, as so many UK savers do, could mean paying Spanish tax on all of it as ordinary income, without the quarter that’s tax-free in Britain. Spain already treats the UK State Pension as income for residents too, as EWN has previously reported.

Until the rules are final, anyone in Spain with an old UK workplace pot should speak to their provider and a cross-border tax adviser before taking money out, because the Spanish tax bill depends on Spain’s rules, whatever Britain decides.

Patients needing transfusions and medicines made from donated plasma could have been affected by a cyberattack on France’s national blood service, after hackers tried to tamper with refrigeration systems at three sites.

The attempt was detected before any blood products were damaged, and the French Blood Establishment (EFS) says no supplies were lost and no health consequences have been identified. But the incident has exposed a disturbing weakness: equipment responsible for keeping vital medical products safe can be put at risk through a supplier’s computer systems.

Hackers targeted blood storage facilities

The attack took place on Monday, November 2, and targeted refrigeration equipment used at three EFS sites storing plasma. The blood service said temperature and defrosting settings had been changed to extremely high levels. The affected cold rooms normally keep products at around minus 30°C.

French media reported that hackers attempted to raise the temperature to 110°C. The EFS has not confirmed that precise figure, saying only that the settings were pushed to very high levels.

The cold rooms held bags of plasma intended for transfusions, as well as plasma used in the manufacture of medicines. Plasma is the liquid part of blood and contains proteins used in treatments for a range of serious conditions. It must be stored under carefully controlled conditions to remain suitable for medical use.

Alarms stopped the attack before products were damaged

The EFS said its monitoring and alarm systems quickly detected the abnormal settings. Staff were then able to intervene, securing the products or transferring them to other storage facilities before they were compromised.

Blood collection and distribution continued without interruption, according to the service. Hospitals and patients were therefore not left facing a disruption to supplies, and the EFS reported no loss of blood products or samples.

Attack came through refrigeration supplier

The hackers did not directly break into the EFS’s own computer network. The attack affected equipment supplied by Coolworld, a company providing refrigeration services. Coolworld acknowledged a cybersecurity incident involving a limited number of its units.

In a statement, the company said the vulnerability reported in the media related to a component supplied by a third party and was outside its direct control. It said it had responded promptly and taken appropriate measures. Coolworld did not provide further details about the affected customer or the method used by the attackers.

French authorities are investigating how the incident happened and how many refrigeration units may have been exposed. The Health Ministry said technical investigations were continuing, while remote access to the affected refrigerators was disabled.

Could similar attacks put other essential supplies at risk?

The identity of the hackers has not been disclosed, and there is no confirmed link between this incident and recent attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems elsewhere in Europe. Those attacks have caused serious disruption for retailers, with hackers remotely altering the settings of fridges and freezers. Food had to be discarded after temperatures rose, leaving businesses with substantial losses. The targeting of blood storage facilities brings the potential consequences into sharper focus: instead of spoiled groceries, a successful attack could have put medical supplies needed by hospitals at risk.

The incidents also raise questions about the security of equipment connected to the internet for remote monitoring and maintenance. A refrigeration system may appear far removed from the digital networks used to manage patient records, but it still relies on software and remote access. If those systems are compromised, the consequences can move beyond computers and into the physical world.

For now, the EFS says its blood supplies remain safe and its services are operating normally. The alarms worked, staff acted in time and no plasma was lost. Investigators still need to establish how the attackers gained access and whether other equipment could be vulnerable. The attempted attack did not cause a shortage or interrupt treatment, but it showed how quickly a cyber incident can threaten something hospitals cannot do without.

Financial advisors worldwide are concerned about the growing ‘gap’ they observe in their industry between financial planning and asset management. Many say that it’s a struggle for them to align the financial plan of a client with their investment portfolio.

One financial advisor described it as: “two halves of a bridge built from opposite banks that don’t meet in the middle: each side may be well engineered, but without coordination, the client can’t get across.”

Few people in the finance sector deny that this gap exists. They offer several differing reasons to explain it, however. Some blame chaotic markets, others say it’s due to a tug-of-war between clients wanting personalisation and financial firms wanting to grow rapidly.

Peter Dougherty believes this gap has a different cause: the limitations of modern portfolio theory. He thinks the problem begins with the one-dimensional assumption that ‘volatility’ equals ‘risk’ in an investment portfolio. As Dougherty explains: “if over three years two stocks have each earned 7%, portfolio theory tells us that the stock whose annual returns have been 9%, -1%, and 14% is ‘riskier’ than the stock that returned 8%, 6% and 7% over the three-year period. They each earned 7%. Yet, because the standard deviation of the first stock’s returns (6.24) is higher than second’s (.816), which means its returns vary more, buying the first stock is viewed as subjecting the investor to more ‘risk’ than buying the second stock.”

But Dougherty doesn’t believe this ‘volatility’ (variance in price) equals risk. Instead, he says that “not having what you need when you need it is the risk. Volatility is an important characteristic, but it is not risk. To most clients, ‘risk’ is the chance of not reaching their goals, like running out of money in retirement. That chasm between the textbook definition and the client’s definition is the reason financial planning and investing need to be designed together.”

So, four years ago, when Peter Dougherty arrived in Spain as a financial planner, he deliberately went to work for the only Spanish firm that brought financial planning and investments into alignment: Bissan Wealth Management. His aim was to help Americans in Spain with their financial plans and investments. To enhance his abilities, Dougherty earned a master’s degree in Spanish taxation from Universidad Nebrija and became Spain’s only U.S./Spanish dual-accredited financial planner: receiving the European Financial Planner certification in Spain and the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® credential in the U.S.

Now, four years later, he recognises that it’s often wiser for Americans to leave their investments in the U.S. rather than transfer financial assets to Spain. He recently arrived at this ‘aha moment’ — ‘when the penny dropped’ — as he was adjusting a wobbly table at a neighbourhood café. Dougherty placed a napkin under one leg and a different leg started rocking because the floor itself was uneven. That’s the moment it dawned on him that the real problem for Americans in Spain, like a rug that doesn’t fit the room, is that U.S. investment rules are incompatible with the Spanish financial ecosystem.

That’s the reason Dougherty left his job at Bissan and founded USpain Financial Consultancy, where he provides independent financial advice and planning to English-speaking expats in Spain. He still believes that financial planning and investing need to be designed together rather than handled by separate people or processes. But he also realises that Americans in Spain seldom need assistance with Spanish wealth management. That explains why USpain Financial blends cross-border financial planning for expats in Spain that works well even if their investment portfolio is predominantly in the U.S.

To draw a parallel between what his new firm is doing and technology, Dougherty jokes: “How do you know a computer is European? It has a five-week vacation policy, but it has an operating system, installed software, and a processor that are from California.”

Peter Dougherty, CFP®, CRPC®, EFP (Spain), is a financial planner at USpain Financial Consultancy, where he specialises in advising Americans living in the country. He is the author of two financial planning books, one in English: “The Dougherty Code: Secrets of Financial Planning in Spain Revealed” and the other in Spanish: “La Hoja de Ruta Fiscal y Financiera para los españoles en EE.UU.”

For more information: https://www.financial-planning-in-spain.com

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax or investment advice. Tax and investment rules differ for US citizens resident in Spain and depend on individual circumstances. Always seek independent regulated advice before making financial decisions, and check that any adviser is authorised to advise you in your jurisdiction