Workplace pension transfer

Nuggy96

I currently have a workplace pension with my current employers ~£10k with Standard Life. The fund I am in has a fund management charge of 1% and an additional charge of 0.017% which is quite steep. Can I transfer all of it or a large proportion to another pension provider I.e vanguard? Or is that not possible given it is my current workplace pension that I am still contributing each month to it?

Thanks in advance!

Albermarle

Normally you need to keep your workplace pension open or your employer may refuse to make their contributions to another pension.
SL workplace pensions usually have a discount that is not obvious from just looking at the fund sheet . I have an ex workplace SL pension and it has a discount of 0.53% and others have mentioned as high as 0.75% .
So first thing is to check this with your employer or give SL a call.

Nuggy96

Albermarle said:

Normally you need to keep your workplace pension open or your employer may refuse to make their contributions to another pension.
SL workplace pensions usually have a discount that is not obvious from just looking at the fund sheet . I have an ex workplace SL pension and it has a discount of 0.53% and others have mentioned as high as 0.75% .
So first thing is to check this with your employer or give SL a call.

Thanks for your reply.

Interesting, would it be possible to transfer out say 90% of it so it stays open? When it was the generic Standard Life fund I did get a discount, but the risk/performance was not suited to my goals, so I changed funds, and now it is 1.017% which is steep.

Alexland

You will need to check your scheme rules but we have partially transferred lump sums out of our workplace pensions into SIPPs while remaining active contributing members.
It generally wouldn't be efficient for us to contribute directly into our SIPPs as our employer operates salary sacrifice to save the national insurance.

Nuggy96

Alexland said:

You will need to check your scheme rules but we have partially transferred lump sums out of our workplace pensions into SIPPs while remaining active contributing members.
It generally wouldn't be efficient for us to contribute directly into our SIPPs as our employer operates salary sacrifice to save the national insurance.

Thanks for your response. OK great that's good to know as I think I can get the same fund in Vanguard with a lower FMC%. Do you have any recommendations for SIPP providers or funds? My plans to retire in over 30+ years

Alexland

Nuggy96 said:
Do you have any recommendations for SIPP providers or funds?

Really depends what you want to invest in but for a partial transfer out of a £10k pension it would be best to stick to platforms with percentage rather than fixed charges which are better suited to larger accounts.
If you just want a passive global tracker or multi asset fund then Vanguard are good or if you want more choice then Fidelity or AJ Bell are also good.

Albermarle

OK great that's good to know as I think I can get the same fund in Vanguard with a lower FMC%

Your fund in SL will be a SL badged fund , albeit the underlying fund may be available elsewhere. In practice what this means that you will only be able to transfer out in cash .

Due to the relatively small amount of money involved , probably only worth bothering once a year , if it is allowed at all .

kuratowski

Definitely check your terms and conditions.  A pension scheme I hold with a former employer is with Standard Life (the GFRP) and they do not allow partial transfers of an account at least that's how I read the ts & cs.

dunstonh

I currently have a workplace pension with my current employers ~£10k with Standard Life. The fund I am in has a fund management charge of 1% and an additional charge of 0.017% which is quite steep.

What makes you think the fund charge is 1%?     

Are you looking at the fund factsheet (which shows the default maximums) or are you looking at your specific charges?

Auto-enrolment schemes cannot charge more than 0.75% for the default funds.    Default funds are usually the in-house funds.      They can go over 0.75% for external funds.

Nuggy96

I have chosen a different more risky fund than the default fund selected when I first joined the scheme 

Nuggy96

kuratowski said:

Definitely check your terms and conditions.  A pension scheme I hold with a former employer is with Standard Life (the GFRP) and they do not allow partial transfers of an account at least that's how I read the ts & cs.

Thanks i have messaged them to see what I can do