Transfer Standard Life pension to SIPP

AnotherJoe

ps. SL do do Vanguard funds. I have at least one in my SL pension.

Snakey

AnotherJoe wrote: »

I did discover one glitch, most of my funds were 1% or so, but one fund had a charge that was about 0.6% and for that the 0.75% was not applied, and you had to pay the full charge.

That's interesting. I do recall something about only getting the discount if the charge is above a certain number, although I don't seem to have written it down anywhere, so it may be a feature rather than a bug. I would hope that my old IFA was aware of the rules in full and would have selected the funds with this in mind (just as you have), but it's one of the (many) things on my list to find out more about!

Albermarle

If you put aside special discounts for SL ( Usually ex employer ones ) they have a standard discount structure for larger funds . Then if you carefully look at the full list of funds available ( approx. 300?) then there are a few cheaper ones but for these the discounts do not apply.

That's useful information that the charges are not layered - that their stated SL fund charge includes the charge of the underlying fund rather than being "as well as". Out of interest how did you find this out? In case I am missing an easy source of info!

The poster ( not me ) is an expert/professional so you can accept what he says as fact.

Overall the charges you mention are all quite low/competitive, and probably better to concentrate on the actual investment funds/portfolio, rather than saving 0.1% on the charges.

SonOf

That's useful information that the charges are not layered - that their stated SL fund charge includes the charge of the underlying fund rather than being "as well as". Out of interest how did you find this out? In case I am missing an easy source of info!

Because the SL fund is not buying the units of the Vanguard fund. It is a mirror fund. Not a fund of funds.

In very simple terms, it is run by taking snapshots of the fund it is tracking and mirroring the asset purchases/sales. However, snapshots are not usually daily. So, you get a tracking error. This is why the performance will be different. With mirror funds, the snapshot frequency can result in quite different returns. Not always in a negative way..

If it was investing into the UT/OEIC, it would not have that tracking error and returns would be identical minus the charges difference. A fund that invests into other funds is known as a fund of funds. A fund that mirrors another fund is called a mirror fund. You only see mirror funds on insured funds like pension funds or life funds. Mirror funds were an early way for insured contracts to get access to external fund houses. Nowadays, that is unnecessary but you still see it on legacy contracts. Although a few modern SIPPs, on the advice side, still offer insured funds for those people that want 100% FSCS protection.

Snakey

Ohhhhh I get it now! Complete misunderstanding on my part. I thought they just invested in whatever fund they were named after and it was basically a mechanism to get extra fees out of a captive audience. No wonder the guy at SL the other day didn't seem to know what I was asking.

Right, well that just made my life easier.

Ciprico

AnotherJoe wrote: »

ps. SL do do Vanguard funds. I have at least one in my SL pension.

AnotherJoe,

I've just logged in to my SL pension, and there are only 39 available funds....?

Am I missing something...?

Maybe it's a Stakeholder limitation...

Maybe the funds below are comparable, or even better, but I am not qualified (or inclined) to sift through them all, but do feel I would be happy with a simple VLS pension..




You are viewing all 39 funds available.
Aberdeen Life Global (ex UK) Equity Fund Remove from favourites
Aberdeen Life Multi-Asset Fund Add to favourites
Aberdeen Life UK & Global (50/50) Equity Fund Add to favourites
Aberdeen Life UK Equity Fund Add to favourites
JPM Life Balanced Fund Remove from favourites
JPM Life Diversified Equity Fund Add to favourites
JPM Life UK Specialist Equity Fund Add to favourites
L&G (PMC) Multi-Asset Fund Remove from favourites
L&G (PMC) Pre-Retirement Fund Add to favourites
L&G (PMC) World (ex-UK) Equity Index Fund Remove from favourites
L&G Cash Fund Add to favourites
L&G Consensus Fund Add to favourites
L&G Distribution Fund Add to favourites
L&G Equity Fund Add to favourites
L&G Ethical Fund Add to favourites
L&G European Equity Index Fund Remove from favourites
L&G European Fund Add to favourites
L&G Far Eastern Fund Add to favourites
L&G Fixed Interest Fund Add to favourites
L&G Global Equity 70:30 Index Fund Remove from favourites
L&G Global Equity Fixed Weights 50:50 Index Fund Add to favourites
L&G Global Equity Fixed Weights 60:40 Index Fund Add to favourites
L&G Index Linked Gilt Fund Add to favourites
L&G International Fund Remove from favourites
L&G Managed Fund Add to favourites
L&G North American Fund Add to favourites
L&G Over 15 Year Gilts Index Fund Add to favourites
L&G Property Fund Add to favourites
L&G UK Equity Index Fund Add to favourites
L&G UK Recovery Fund Add to favourites
L&G UK Smaller Companies Fund Add to favourites
L&G US Equity Index Fund Remove from favourites
Man Balanced Managed Fund Add to favourites
Man GLG Continental European Growth Fund Add to favourites
Man Stockmarket Managed Fund Add to favourites
Newton Global Equity Fund Add to favourites
Newton Multi-Asset Balanced Fund Remove from favourites
Newton UK Equity Fund Add to favourites
Newton UK Income Fund Add to favourites

Albermarle

It is probably a stakeholder limitation .
The normal PP has 322 funds in the DIY version>
https://www.standardlife.co.uk/c1/pensions-and-retirement/saving-for-retirement/personal-pension-diy-option-our-pension-funds.page

AnotherJoe

Albermarle wrote: »

It is probably a stakeholder limitation .
The normal PP has 322 funds in the DIY version>
https://www.standardlife.co.uk/c1/pensions-and-retirement/saving-for-retirement/personal-pension-diy-option-our-pension-funds.page

Yes, that's the one, with 322 funds, I'm moving to it from my company SL pension which I think had thousands of funds. Moving was necessary to take some of the TFLS.
It's called AMPP. That is the low cost version of their SIPP there's a higher cost one (higher because they won't carry across my company discount to that) which has a bit more flexibility regards payments and more funds , but the funds in the AMPP were OK with me (only using 3) and I didn't need the extra payment option since i dont intend to take further money out of it in the forseeable.

Ciprico

AnotherJoe,

So they are carrying over your company discount now you are going it alone. (So not generally available) ?

I am looking for reasons NOT to move away from SL, but am struggling...

Albermarle

So they are carrying over your company discount now you are going it alone. (So not generally available) ?

They did this for me but it was 'only' 0.55%
It is at their discretion .
The standard discounts are:
Under £25,000
None
£25,000 - £249,999
0.3% a year
£250,000 - £499,999
0.4% a year
£500,000 +
0.5% a year

The discounts do not apply to a few lower priced funds . Typical fund price is 1to 1.1 % but you can pay more for more actively managed ones.