Scottish Widows Retirement Account compulsory £650 fee

Your_Hero

SallyG wrote: »

Kua - off-piste forgive - just out of curiosity I've scrolled through the Scottish Widows Retirement Account stuff online and been unable to find any mention of a £650 joining fee - you will have looked harder and it still surprised you - have you ever found that charge expressed in writing upfront on the website?
Who told you you'd have to pay £650 to join?

It isn't the account that costs £650, it's the advice for setting it up. As far as I know, this product is only available through regulated advice channels.

dunstonh

SallyG wrote: »

Kua - off-piste forgive - just out of curiosity I've scrolled through the Scottish Widows Retirement Account stuff online and been unable to find any mention of a £650 joining fee - you will have looked harder and it still surprised you - have you ever found that charge expressed in writing upfront on the website?
Who told you you'd have to pay £650 to join?

As already mentioned on this thread, it is not a product charge. It is an adviser charge. Adviser charges do not appear with the product charges as it is up to the relevant distribution channel to decide how much they wish to charge. That was one of the principle requirements of the RDR. i.e. no longer will product providers decide how much the adviser gets paid. Instead the consumer/adviser agree the charge.

jamesd

Kua wrote: »

But I'm investing solely in trackers (so low management fee) and there is no charge for investing in a fund according to this: http://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp/charges-and-interest-rates

Fund dealing
Online, phone and post dealing
(unit trusts and OEICs)
No charge
We also offer up to a 5.5% saving on the initial charges made by the fund manager"

What am I missing here??

That says that there is no charge for buying or selling the fund. It does not say that there is no platform charge for holding the fund after you have bought it.

So you have nil dealing charge plus 0.45%/12 visible charging each month by deduction from your account's cash balance plus the 0.2% deducted in small pieces each day from the fund's value.

zagfles

Have a look at Snowman's spreadsheet for platform charges.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64540489&postcount=15

Also have a look at http://www.comparefundplatforms.com where you can compare the total charges for the funds you want to hold. I don't think the include HL.

Bear in mind you can negotiate charges with HL - for a sizeable pot people have negotiated 0.2% or 0.25% platform charge on the lot, and HL offer some trackers at around 0.1% OCF.

jem16

zagfles wrote: »

Bear in mind you can negotiate charges with HL - for a sizeable pot people have negotiated 0.2% or 0.25% platform charge on the lot, and HL offer some trackers at around 0.1% OCF.

I doubt HL will be offering any discount when the OP is only starting out with £200pm. Might take him a while to get to a sizeable pot.

zagfles

jem16 wrote: »

I doubt HL will be offering any discount when the OP is only starting out with £200pm. Might take him a while to get to a sizeable pot.

No but for low value SIPPs HL are good value anyway - because they don't have fixed charges like most other SIPP platforms.

jem16

zagfles wrote: »

No but for low value SIPPs HL are good value anyway - because they don't have fixed charges like most other SIPP platforms.

Yes that may be correct. However no point in leading the OP to believe that HL's platform charge will be anything other than 0.45% as in his case it's not relevant.

zagfles

jem16 wrote: »

Yes that may be correct. However no point in leading the OP to believe that HL's platform charge will be anything other than 0.45% as in his case it's not relevant.

Depends how fast he saves. But 0.45% plus 0.1% fund charge isn't bad for a small amount. Fidelity are cheaper for the platform I think as they have no fixed charges either, though not sure if the offer the same fund classes as HL with 0.1% OCFs (plus last I heard they didn't allow drawdown without advice :eek: so he'd have to transfer out to drawdown).

Kua

So I've found one particular tracker on both the Cavendish website (personal pension) and the Hargreaves Lansdown (SIPP) website.

The annual management charge on Cavendish is 0.15%, whereas for Hargreaves Lansdown the annual charge plus Fund Managers Other Expensenses comes to 0.12% i.e. less... Or am I getting this wrong?

http://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/fund-research/
http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/index-tracker-funds/core

jem16

Kua wrote: »

So I've found one particular tracker on both the Cavendish website (personal pension) and the Hargreaves Lansdown (SIPP) website.

The annual management charge on Cavendish is 0.15%, whereas for Hargreaves Lansdown the annual charge plus Fund Managers Other Expensenses comes to 0.12% i.e. less... Or am I getting this wrong?

There isn't a PP with an annual management charge of 0.15%. With HL you haven't added on the platform charge.

http://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/fund-research/

That link doesn't take me to any of the pension funds nor charges. It takes me to a section where you have to pick a fund provider and then pick a fund. That's nothing to do with their PP funds.

You'd need to go here for a PP.

http://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/pensions/stakeholder-and-personal-pensions/

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/index-tracker-funds/core

That's their list of Core trackers (not all of their available trackers) and yes you add up the last 2 columns. You then have to add the platform charge of 0.45%.