£361 Private Pension: Worth transferring to Wealthify?

buel10

Hi.

I have an a Private Pension from when I was briefly with an employer back in 2019. It is only worth £361.
Questions:
1. Am I able to add this to my current pension, or does this depend on the rules of the current pension?
2. I recently invested £50 for my Child as a JISA in Wealthify in order to get the extra £50, as advertised in ML's Newsletter. Would I be able to transfer the pension to Wealthify and put it in an 'adventurous' Pension (my thinking is that with only £361 in and an Aviva AFC of 0.75%, why not?)?

Albermarle

Normally should be easy to transfer a standard DC pension, which is most likely what it is.

If you have a current pension you are contributing to, probably would be easier to transfer it into that. 

You could get maybe £50 out of wealthify but 
1) There are a couple of threads on the forum complaining about them 
2) £50 is literally a drop in the ocean when it comes to pension accumulation/planning

buel10

Thanks for that. I was thinking that, for such a small amount, it might be worth investing as 'adventurous'. Wealthify have had good PR but, thanks to you, I see that other providers offer better rates.

Linton

Probably easiest to transfer the money into your current employer's pension if at all possible, which it probably is,  as they have some incentive to help you.  Ask your employer's pension people. 

£361 really is too small for the hassle of setting up a pension specially for the purpose.

buel10

Hi again.
Update: I see that as well as this, I have £691 in a NEST pension from two previous employers. I assume the advice is to move this to my current pension as well?

Marcon

buel10 said:

Hi again.
Update: I see that as well as this, I have £691 in a NEST pension from two previous employers. I assume the advice is to move this to my current pension as well?

Not unless you get better terms by doing so, and there may be other reasons not to do so. See https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-3550085/STEVE-WEBB-merge-small-pension-pots.html

Linton said:

Probably easiest to transfer the money into your current employer's pension if at all possible, which it probably is,  as they have some incentive to help you.  Ask your employer's pension people. 

All the employer will do is refer OP to the pension provider. They won't do anything to facilitate a transfer - not only do they have no incentive to do so, there is a positive disincentive, which is the potential accession they have somehow 'given advice'.

Linton

Marcon said:

buel10 said:

Hi again.
Update: I see that as well as this, I have £691 in a NEST pension from two previous employers. I assume the advice is to move this to my current pension as well?

Not unless you get better terms by doing so, and there may be other reasons not to do so. See https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-3550085/STEVE-WEBB-merge-small-pension-pots.html

Linton said:

Probably easiest to transfer the money into your current employer's pension if at all possible, which it probably is,  as they have some incentive to help you.  Ask your employer's pension people. 

All the employer will do is refer OP to the pension provider. They won't do anything to facilitate a transfer - not only do they have no incentive to do so, there is a positive disincentive, which is the potential accession they have somehow 'given advice'.

When I transferred small old pensions into my employers pension scheme it was done though the pension team, though that would have been in the days before advice was so strongly regulated. The emloyer may have an in-house pension team or staff who have direct contact with the pension fund manager.

Exodi

buel10 said:

Hi.

I have an a Private Pension from when I was briefly with an employer back in 2019. It is only worth £361.
Questions:
1. Am I able to add this to my current pension, or does this depend on the rules of the current pension?
2. I recently invested £50 for my Child as a JISA in Wealthify in order to get the extra £50, as advertised in ML's Newsletter. Would I be able to transfer the pension to Wealthify and put it in an 'adventurous' Pension (my thinking is that with only £361 in and an Aviva AFC of 0.75%, why not?)?

1. It's usually pretty easy to transfer pensions. I've transferred 3-4 smaller pensions into my existing providers, all were down in a couple of minutes via a quick online form (though they usually take a month or two to complete and may require ID checks).

2. If you've opened a JISA, I don't think you can close this down willy-nilly, or by extension transferring into one of your pension pots. A JISA for all intents and purposes is the childs account, I don't think you can reclaim that money without special circumstances.

3. Wealthify... plenty of better options IMO.

You also mentioned NEST - again, plenty of better options. If my memory serves in, they take 1.8% straight off every contribution into your pot and then charge a 0.3% AMC. Again, plenty of better options...

Albermarle

 If my memory serves in, they take 1.8% straight off every contribution into your pot and then charge a 0.3% AMC. 

0.3% all in is actually quite low. So as long as you keep the NEST pension long enough the 1.8% initial charge gets largely diluted. Not saying NEST is that great but as long as you stay in it a while, the charges are actually quite competitive.

Exodi

Albermarle said:

 If my memory serves in, they take 1.8% straight off every contribution into your pot and then charge a 0.3% AMC. 

0.3% all in is actually quite low. So as long as you keep the NEST pension long enough the 1.8% initial charge gets largely diluted. Not saying NEST is that great but as long as you stay in it a while, the charges are actually quite competitive.

I think you're giving it more credit than it deserves. I think it's more the case that if you find out about the contribution charges after you've already made your contributions, then there's not much point moving because, as you say, 0.3% is fairly low and the contribution costs would be sunk by that point.

However, for someone early on, a 1.8% charge on all contributions is colossal and will reduce their ability to grow and compound their investments when compared to most other pension platforms. I think most employers/employees have sleepwalked into NEST to be completely honest.