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From the Pensions Bill to the raft of products that keep emerging from the pensions sector, there is no escape from retirement planning.

Whether it is variable annuities or Sipps, securing an income for the time when you stop working is a hot issue, and now more than ever, are pensions receiving attention. New companies are coming into the sector, people are getting excited about Sipps, and perhaps for the first time, there is a real attempt at innovation in the sector.

However, the path to success, and for people to secure a comfortable retirement, is full of challenges. While pensions have started to rise further up in people's minds as an issue to be dealt with, it is still going to take some convincing that they should be taking saving for a pension seriously. Particularly now, when food bills and petrol prices have shot through the roof, and while mortgages have generally become more expensive, it must seem difficult right now to decide to put more money away for a day that seems a long way off.

Yet while policymakers and campaigners try time and again to convince people to save more, there may actually be a silver lining in the current financial gloom. Many have predicted that now is a time for prudence and perhaps it is reining in the crazy spending that has kept the economy going. Just as petrol prices have done what the US administration was too scared to do, that is, encourage people to buy cheaper cars, perhaps the credit crunch and its associated consequences may finally get the UK population to face up to reality and prepare for a long and comfortable retirement.

Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser