Altmann says: "As we go into next year my view would be that central banks are going to have to bring rates down. I'm not talking about to 0, but I think they've gone too far too fast, they have not allowed the usual time to sort of see how this is going to actually pan out.
"There could be an assumption that in the end, if there's some kind of meltdown, they'll just do more QE really because that's been the go-to for a long time."
She adds: "What nobody has focused on properly yet is the impact on defined contribution schemes."
The real catastrophe
Some older investors have lost vast amounts of their money from recent market falls, linked, according to Altmann, to both QE and former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's politics.
These falls were caused by a bond market crash – assets savers were told were safe. "That's the real catastrophe," says Altmann.
FT Adviser has spoken to clients of the Aegon Lifestyle fund, who are automatically placed into the Scottish Equitable Retirement Plan one year from their retirement, who have lost as much as 41 per cent over the past three years and 30 per cent over the past five years.
The fund is intended for those who will be buying an annuity within the next 12 months when they enter retirement.
It has a 75 per cent allocation to gilts and 25 per cent to cash, and suffered as gilt yields have risen sharply over the past three years as a consequence of both last year's "mini"-Budget and latterly the BoE's interest rate rises.
"The impact of the ['mini']-Budget was partly the result of QT, and you needed a bit of QE to stabilise things," says Altmann. "Part of it is now being driven by what I believe is over-tight monetary policy, particularly short rates.
"I think we really urgently need central banks to recognise that this is not the best way to react to the post-QE scenarios."
Carmen Reichman is multi-media editor at FT Adviser
