● At least 1.4 million pensioners must work in their retirement to make ends meet, says Dean Mirfin at equity-release specialist financial advisor Key Retirement Solutions.

He says 17 per cent of pensioner households earned income from work in 2007/8, up from 12 per cent a decade earlier.

● Huge US fund manager Vanguard, which has specialised in low charges on its funds since launching a tracker mutual fund in 1976, is entering the UK market at a time when many shellshocked investors will not want too much of their money grabbed by investment professionals.

It has teamed with Alliance Trust Savings Fund Supermarket to offer Vanguard funds within a share-dealing or ISA account, with a flat fee of £12.50 for an online trade or £20 for telephone or postal trades, in additional to annual fees charged by the fund manager.

● Savers are managing to put away an average 6.83 per cent of income, or £209 a month – the highest proportion ever measured by the National Savings and Investments Quarterly Savings Survey since it launched in December 2004.

London has the highest percentage of income saved, 7.98 per cent – compared with seven per cent in Scotland, 6.73 per cent in the North-East and 5.87 per cent in the South- East.