Pension charges

chissers

I have a small personal pension policy with HSBC (formerly M+S) which has performed reasonably but wondered what you felt about the charges as I was contemplating transferring it to a Hargreaves Lansdown Vantage SIPP FTSE All Share which has a TER of 0.27% and AMC (platform fee £2 per month).

I interrogated HSBC about my charges:
-AMC 0.7% pa
-no additional fund expenses so TER is 0.7% pa
-no trail or any commission is payable
-no service costs
-no exit fees
-no guaranteed annuity rates or life assurance

What do think or is performance the key to worry about?
Any opinion on the HL SIPP FTSE All share tracker?
Jonathan

chissers

The HSBC fund is "Internatiional Managed Pension Fund" investing in UK fixed interest stocks,as well as UK and overseas equities

performance +7% in 2010-2011

I am not sure if it is actively managed.

Jonathan

dunstonh

You dont state the amount but going 100% into a single sector investment fund is bad investing. You will probably end up paying less in charges but get a lower overall return. Picking UK equity for it as well is just compounding that considering how poor UK equity tends to perform (although a lot of that could be due to a sustained Labour govt - UK stockmarket tends to do badly during a Labour Govt - That said, last month UK stockmarket was ranked 21 out of 23 and last year it was 15th out of 23).

This is reflected in the fact that the Int Managed pension fund has outperformed the fund you are looking to go into since it was launched (and its only an average performer).

So, it looks like you are investing to save on charges rather than investing to make money as your alternative in the past would have underperformed what you already have.

flowergirl365

Hi
this is about pension charges but a slightly different situation. I got a letter dated 9th Feb. in which they informed me that effective of 1st Jan my pension (aprox £500, 2 months contribution before I left, thats why they hate me) would be subject to a £26.80 per year record keeping charge. this seems to be up from zero in documents dated Dec 10. Nevermind they claim this is only equal to the 2.8% increase in average weekly earnings index, (!?!) my question is surely any company with any product/contract has to give notice in advance of increased charges and allow customers who want to avoid them the opportunity to switch before they become effective. Where is that written? I intend to ring and harrang them and want to get the source of this straight.

thanks