HSBC - awful business service.

NewlySingle

Our company is a small SME but we really want to take care of our folks.
One of the things we decided on early was to provide a 5% non-contributory Pension scheme for everyone past their probation period, which they could then choose to pay into on top.
In 2010/2011 we only had 3 qualifying staff but knew we weren't IFA's anddidn't have in house expertise.

The shortlist of our requirements were:
1) A provider that was large and established for investment confidence,
2) That financial advisors would be available for staff so they could get goodadvice and information when joining the scheme
3) Somewhere that had plenty of funds to choose from so staff could pick from arange of risk options and choose ethical funds (if they were so inclined).

Wewent to see HSBC and were really happy that they met all our criteria.
The financial advisor was really helpful and they had useful printedinformation packs which folks could review after meeting the advisor and beforemaking their fund decisions etc.

Unfortunately when we went to sign up our latest employee everything has gone to pot...
We contacted the branch to arrange an appointment with the pensions advisor to find out they no longer have them.
To quote the email I recieved...

"the roles that were performed by Commercial FianancialAdvisors have all been demised"

Instead we were told that we have to administer the pensions via our online bankingp ortal!!!
As my role is within Operations and HR I did not have access to the Internet Banking Portal (we minimize access rights as much as possible to reduce risk and pointed our that it was crazy to have new bank dongles etc just so we could administer our Pension plans)

Needless to say we got nowhere with this complaint so the company duly set me up with online banking access so I could view the pensions portal

Once on the Portal there is no guidance at all on what you need to do with thee mployee or any process to follow at all.
It is not until you are in the process of trying to set the staff member up (hoping that the options will come up within the dialogue boxes) that you get questiosns like this..

"Youmust confirm that the employee has read and understood the Key Features Document,and is eligible under HM Revenue & Customs rules to be a member of the scheme, before commencing their plan."

Inshort HSBC seem to be asking employers to give Pensions advice as unqualified non-IFA’s or to bear the burden of paying IFA’s
(in which case what benefit is there to the HSBC scheme when all the features we were sold on “easy to administer”, “pensions advisors available to help the staff etc” have all been withdrawn!!)

I even phoned the telephone advice line today 08457 456127, pushed all the relevant numbers and options, the line rang out then went dead.

We made a formal complaint about these services being withdrawn,the lack of information available for us to fulfil our legal obligations
and the almost zero corporate communication.
1) We received no communication when the service was withdrawn
2) We received no communication as to what our new alternative arrangements should be
3) We have received no “packs” or information that should be discussed with a new starter or guidance as to who should do this
4) We received no communication as to whether the staff have had the information they need to be able to log onto their pension portals etc.

Our MD has said we haven’t received any notifications or reduction to the plan costs (in line with this huge reduction in service& facilities).

We called the help desk today and I wastold there is no guidance on what I’m supposed to print out for my employees or what I’m supposed to take them through.

I was also told today we’re now expected to print our own literature from a website address they supplied www.wrs.hsbc.co.uk!

I can see no clear guide as to what the employees need to sign, or need to understand and no-one in the whole of HSBC that I can speak to so they can talk me through it….

I raised a formal complaint yesterday and once that has been through the process can I then raise it with the financial ombudsman?

Surely Pension providers shouldn’t be allowed to completely remove any service element without at least notifying their customers

or allowing them a penalty free exit to a provider with some service level!!!!

Any suggestions or advice or similar experiences would be welcome, maybe you’ve been further down this road and have suggestions?

Thanks All and sorry about the post length

Nicola

xylophone

http://startups.co.uk/setting-up-a-company-pension-scheme/

Is this worth a read? http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/media/943723/pension_saving_small_business.pdf

Might an alternative be for each employee to set up his own pension plan and for you to pay into it?

NewlySingle

Thank you - the startup doc was really useful, I guess the problem is if we take an IFA's advice and get a new pension provider is there anything to prevent them basically removing the services we chose them for (as HSBC have done?)

Ideally we need everything to be under one easy to administer scheme as the upkeep of all the potential pensions pot payments that might be opted for, changing contribution amounts for pay increases etc (and whether they fulfil our legal requirements when those come in in a few years) would probably see me hiding in a cupboard and refusing to come out .

PuzzledDave

Since Dunstonh is (hopefully temporaily) gone, I'll chime in with my best non-expert guess...

I think the key point you need to choose is do you:

A) Want someone to look after this for you, complete all the needed legal steps required today and for the next employee and all future changes in legislation?

or

Just get you through this time ?

If (A), then you need to pay someone a wage to do this on an ongoing basis. If not an in-house employee suitable trained and qualified then you need to pay a IFA, ideally not a one-man-band who could retire/get run over by a bus, on an ongoing basis to do this. Am sure there are many who would love a ongoing business relationship with your company and provide clear fees perhaps just a monthly sum or perhaps per transaction.

If (B) Then the IFA may move to south of Spain without notifying you and if HSBC switch it all around (or HMRC !) then you will be back here again....

xylophone

http://www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk/about/

I wonder whether these people could assist/provide a pointer?

mania112

HSBC have packed up financial advice. You caught them at the wrong time.

Banks aren't ideal for pensions, they tend to be more expensive and not as straightforward as you might expect a bank to be.

An IFA is your best bet (find one at https://www.unbiased.co.uk) they can take the set up off your hands and help you when new members start. Your [firms] only contact is to send the payments each month.

jamesd

If you just want to do this without an IFA then you could do considerably worse than using Now: Pensions. They have only one fund but employees can transfer out from time to time. The one fund they use should be a good choice for the ones who don't want to pay attention, assuming it does as well as that of its parent company. You can also offer the option for employees to have them get the payments into a personal scheme if you want to. Most in practice won't want to, so the overhead won't be great.

Your scheme seems too small to provide much in the way of ongoing servicing from an IFA without raising employee or your costs to an unacceptable level.