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News this week that employees have to be offered a workplace pension will be a big boost for those whose employers had not previously offered it and should help people secure a better quality retirement. But the pensions sector overall has taken a bit of a hit in recent years and it’s not just those without a pension at all who might want to reassess their retirement plans. Those who have retired are living for longer and drawing cash every week, while low interest rates and dysfunctional markets have lowered the overall value of funds and led to some being closed for new members. In fact, traditional methods of saving for retirement have been well shaken since the credit crunch. How often have you heard someone refer to their second home or buy-to-let property as their retirement fund? As property values have fallen and plateaued, it’s certainly not as safe as it was a few years ago and a property that can’t sell is a big burden for anyone about to leave work. No-one wants to compromise on their standard of living, so as the population lives for longer (men in the UK can now expect to live for another 17.8 years after reaching 65 and women another 20.4 years) it makes sense to provision in several ways for retirement, which is why some people are looking at investing in businesses for high returns as part of a varied portfolio. At rebuildingsociety.com investments can range from  a six month to five year repayment period, so you can tie your cash up for a little while or a long time and there’s always the option of selling your loan to another lender should you need to withdraw funds. And because we don’t think pooling all your cash in one place is sensible either, our model allows investors to spread their investments over a number of businesses. It helps entrepreneurs because they’re getting cash at a cheaper rate than the bank would charge and adventurous investors might want to take a slice of a company in the future, so a crowdfunding round can be viewed as a trial run.