Barclays Bank Ltd Pension

Fluffy_pup

I worked for Barclays Bank for eleven years and unfortunately I have no details of the pension scheme. I contacted National Insurance who have provided details of NI payments to Barclays Bank.

I have written to Barclays Bank, enclosing the NI payment details but have not received a reply.
What can I do next?

Marcon

Fluffy_pup said:

I worked for Barclays Bank for eleven years and unfortunately I have no details of the pension scheme. I contacted National Insurance who have provided details of NI payments to Barclays Bank.

I have written to Barclays Bank, enclosing the NI payment details but have not received a reply.
What can I do next?

How long ago did you write - and are you sure you wrote to the correct address? Your post suggests your employment might have been some considerable time ago, so it's possible they may have to access archived records, which is never quick.

flaneurs_lobster

Have you contacted Barclays Bank UK Retirement Fund?

https://epa.towerswatson.com/accounts/barclays/public/barclays-bank-retirement-contacts/

Give them full name, DoB, NINo and the dates of employment.

They have no interest in your NI contributions, then or since.

Fluffy_pup

I wrote a month ago, recorded delivery and my employment was in the 60’s and 70’s. I understand they may have to access archived records but I thought they would acknowledge my letter if they have received it.

MTB1986

Barclays pensions are administered by Willis Towers Watson, and they’re not renowned for responding quickly, I’m afraid. If you sent your letter to them, at the correct address, then you may need to give it a bit longer before you receive an acknowledgement in writing. 

Brie

Whether you have any retained benefits will depend on a number of things.

How old were you when you joined Barclays?  if you were quite young you would not have been allowed to join their pension scheme.  I think at that time you might have needed to be at least 25.

How long were you with Barclays after you joined the scheme?  I believe the minimum number of membership years at that point needed to be 10 full years to retain a benefit.  Even a day less than 10 years would have meant you would have no pension from them.  This was a particularly tough thing for women in that if they couldn't join until they were 25 they had to remain there until at least 35 - without taking any maternity leave as that would cause a break in service.

And then there's the dreaded Equivalent Pension Benefit (EPB) scheme that they had in the 1960s.  Can't recall how long this ran for but I believe everyone was allowed to join from day 1.  Contributions were similar to a couple of pennies a month for the majority of people so were never going to add up to much.  There was an exercise that looked into EPBs nearly 20 years back and the vast majority of people who had been there for several years got payouts of £20 total or less.  Any records would have been digitised at that time but it may be very hard to match your record to what they have as most had just surname, initials and a date of birth in squiggly fountain pen writing on file cards.  Transposing that to a spreadsheet was never going to be easy or accurate.  

Might be best to include a query about EPB as well as the rest when you contact them.  £20 is better than nothing.

(no guessing why I know any of this.)

Marcon

Fluffy_pup said:

I wrote a month ago, recorded delivery and my employment was in the 60’s and 70’s. I understand they may have to access archived records but I thought they would acknowledge my letter if they have received it.

Christmas and New Year will have taken a chunk of the working time out of the last month, so I'm afraid the answer is just wait. If you're only asking now about pensions dating from employment half a century ago, it's a bit unreasonable to complain because you aren't getting an immediate answer!

xylophone

How old were you when you joined Barclays?  if you were quite young you would not have been allowed to join their pension scheme.  I think at that time you might have needed to be at least 25.

Not in the Barclays  1964  Pension Scheme it would appear, at least not in the late seventies.

See https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80902884/#Comment_80902884

Hi, I am not sure if this helps but I joined Barclays when I was 16 in 1979. & left in 1986. I have just looked at my paperwork & it says Pensionable Service- 81 months (6 years 9 months), so I received a pension the whole time I was there. 

The EPB was for those contracted out of the  State Graduated Pension Scheme (1961 -1975)


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blast-from-past-equivalent-pension-benefits-dave-king

Presumably though Barclays offered a pension higher than Grad?

And not all DB Schemes were contracted out of Grad.   Relative has a DB pension ( service 1968 -2008) but still has Grad Pension.

The OP will have to query any entitlement through WTW - it could take a while.

See above thread and  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6538549/barclays-bank-1964-final-salary-pension-scheme-help