Equiniti, one of the UK’s largest pensions administrators and business process outsourcing providers, said a decade of a weakening pound has left many pensioners living abroad with up to 50% less buying power from their retirement income now than when they first retired.

Keith Boughton, director, Equiniti Paymaster said: “Ten years ago the value of sterling was significantly higher than it is today, and those emigrating abroad for their retirement enjoyed considerable value from their pension.

“A plummeting pound has left many expat pensioners unable to make ends meet and struggling to find other ways to protect the value of their pensions.”

Equiniti Paymaster currently administers the payroll and international payment of pensions for over 50,000 expatriate pensioners, many of whom it said are former public sector workers receiving an average pension of around £5,600 a year.

The largest proportion of these 50,000 pensioners has retired to the Eurozone (12.45%) where someone who retired in 2003 will have seen the purchasing power of their pension fall by 22%. Someone with a £5,000 pension would bring in just under 7,300 euros ten years ago, while the same pension amount would now bring in only 5,692 euros.

Those who have seen the biggest fall in their income are expats who retired to Australia. Over the past ten years, and particularly in more recent years, the Australian dollar has strengthened, compounding the weakening of sterling over the same period. This has meant pensioners are 47% worse off now than ten years ago, with the average pension falling from A$13,625 to A$7,253.