SIPP vs Stakeholder

xylophone

https://moneyfacts.co.uk/guides/retirement/pensions-glossary/

She can choose a stakeholder, a personal pension, a SIPP or indeed all three!

https://protected.fscs.org.uk/banking/ethical-pensions/ may be of interest.

Prism

Devenish wrote: »

Thanks Prism - is there an efficient way of doing this?

You will need to decide what you want from an ethical fund. There are lots of interpretations. For example if you follow the US Dow Jones guidelines here http://www.robecosam.com/ you would discover that companies that participate in tobacco, gambling, arms, oil, mining etc are often included as sustainable or ethical companies. Maybe you are ok with that. You would need to read the documentation for each fund to discover what their ethos was and if it matched yours. Just picking a fund with ethical or sustainable in the name doesnt tell the whole picture.

I would follow xylophone's link. You could also read the documentation about Fundsmith's ethical fund for a point of view https://www.fundsmith.co.uk/global/sef/documents. Its an interesting perspective even if you don't chose that fund.

Devenish

Prism wrote: »

One way of looking at this would be to fund an ethical fund first that you like and then search for which platforms hold it

Thanks Prism - is there an efficient way of doing this?

Devenish

Thanks xylophone. Within the info you suggested, I found the NEST ethical fund which has the following two-part charges:
- a contribution charge of 1.8 percent on each new contribution into a member's retirement pot
- an annual management charge (AMC) of 0.3 percent on the total value of a member's fund each year.
This seems very attractive on the face of it. What is your evaluation of NEST?

dunstonh

The key is to deciding where to invest first and then pick the fund and provider that offers that fund next.

I cant help you on research on the DIY side as I use software filtering. Not sure if any DIY provider offers that. i.e. fill out the ethical investor questionnaire, then input that into software and it tells you what funds meet your criteria.

- a contribution charge of 1.8 percent on each new contribution into a member's retirement pot

Nest is virtually unique now. The rest have no initial charges.

- an annual management charge (AMC) of 0.3 percent on the total value of a member's fund each year.

Its low but not that low. Both advised and DIY options can get close.

What is your evaluation of NEST?

Fine if you employer offers it but not much cop as an individual plan.

Devenish

Thanks dunstonh, Why do you say NEST is not much cop as an individual plan? In my ignorance on these matters, I must be missing something!

Devenish

Actually, I think I get it now why NEST is relatively unattractive as an individual plan. It is the 1.8% charge on all added money. I have an ethical Stakeholder pension with Aviva which has an AMC of 0.4%. It would take 18(?) years for the charges at Aviva to overtake NEST's. In the meantime, the money in Aviva would have grown substantially more than in NEST.