Nest pension move to STD Life

BigNoel2020

Hi there. This is my first post so be gentle.
My employer pays approx. £160 per month in total in to NEST for me for a few years now. 3%/5%

I also have a Standard Life pension that ive been using for a long number of years.
Can i ask my employer to pay the payments into STD Life instead, or is he not obliged to?
TIA

Dazed_and_confused

Pretty sure they aren't obliged to do this.

They are obliged to offer the pension. Which they have done with NEST.

Would your employer contribute more if you upped your contributions from 3%?

If not there is nothing to stop you making extra contributions (assuming you don't contribute more than your total earnings for pension purposes).

Spreadsheetman

Does Nest support partial transfers out these days?

SonOf

Can i ask my employer to pay the payments into STD Life instead, or is he not obliged to?

For the employer to use the SL pension, you would need to opt out of the workplace pension. The employer would have to set up a payment method for them to pay into the SL pension. If it's not a modern SL pension it would probably require an intermediary or more manual process (the version you have is probably out-of-date compared to their modern ones as say you have had it a long time).

The employer would then have lower opted in stats and greater administration costs. If the employer offers to do this for you, then they would have to offer it to all employees.

So, the employer would almost certainly say no.

Whilst SL do have some very good pension options today (I particularly like their Elevate platform), a lot of their legacy pensions are more expensive and have lower flexibility and options (as they were built in a different era). NEST may be a basic option and the 1.8% initial charge may well be uncomfortable but it is simple and its ongoing charge very low. So, in the absence of actual figures, there is a good chance you are probably going to have a more expensive SL pension with similar functionality as NEST. This then begs the question, why would you want to divert it to SL?

BigNoel2020

Thanks for all your replies.
My logic was to consolidate my pensions into 1 pension scheme.
FYI i have about £5k in NEST and £140k in SL in what they call ''4BALANCED II UNIVERSAL.''
I'm over 55 so i'm now worrying about it for the ist time in 20 odd years lol.
Is SL a good pension provider to stay with, is my main worry.

SonOf

Is SL a good pension provider to stay with,

That is impossible for us to answer. SL have multiple versions of their pension for different distribution channels. They also offer different versions of different terms. Then you have the various versions offered over the years. You could be on a legacy version that is very good and better than a modern version or vice versa.

You may also require functionality now or in the future that is not available (for example legacy plans rarely include the option to do drawdown and require you to move to a modern plan). It could well be that the Nest pension is the better short term option (whilst working) but an alternative provider (i.e. a third option) could be the best option long term.

Albermarle

Is SL a good pension provider to stay with, is my main worry.

I have an older pension with SL and I find them easy to deal with and the website is user friendly .
Their customer service is very reactive to queries , although it probably helps that I am classed as a 'priority customer ' . Maybe you will be with £140K with them ?
Their standard fund charges are 1% to 1.1% , although you can have more expensive funds . There are discounts as your pot size gets bigger . If it is an ex workplace pension there might be even bigger discounts - up to 0.75% I believe ( I get 0.55% that my ex employer negotiated ) which makes the pricing pretty competitive , especially as there are no extra/hidden charges .
As said above if you stay with them , you will probably need to switch to a newer version , so you will have full drawdown capability .
More important than the above is how is the fund performing /is it still suitable for your situation/age/plans? If you want you will be able to change the fund and stay with SL.