'Best' Auto Enrolment WPP Provider?

B0bbyEwing

I get that what makes one best for one wont make it best for the next person & that there may be different criteria for this based on whether you're an employer or employee. 

With that said, is there a provider or providers that are generally accepted as being better than most (or even worse than most)?

2 obvious points I can think of are 1) the fees 2) whether you have the ability to deviate from what the default investment is (perhaps you want something a little more riskier/cautious than the default). There's probably other points too that don't really come to mind for me, especially employer only points (such as set up fees, if they even have to pay to set up). 

For example, I have relatives who are with Nest & The People's Pension. I've seen the portals so I'm familiar with the workings of them & have seen that you can change what you're invested in if you so wish. 

The provider I was auto enrolled in to (Now) you can't do that. Your money is invested where they decide & that doesn't change. The only option you have is do you want to pay in an additional percentage over the minimum or not. So if you want it riskier or more cautious then tough, you've got to go with what they decide.

As for a fee comparison, I'm not sure. And I'm aware there's other providers too.

I tried Googling this but the articles I'm coming across are either years old, so who knows how out of date they are or whether they still apply, or whether the article I'm reading is biased - as I found one to be.

So just wondered if there's some seen as generally better or worse than the rest?

dunstonh

'Best' Auto Enrolment WPP Provider?

Best is subjective.   You can get AE schemes that only have a one fund (although most basic ones have a handful,  through to SIPPs with 30,000 or so options.
Some have software that is easy for employers.   Some less so.

With that said, is there a provider or providers that are generally accepted as being better than most (or even worse than most)?

No.  Mainly as there are only handful of providers that cater for small employers.   Larger employers can obtain better terms from the bigger players.  So, it can depend on the employer what the terms are.

Apart from Nest, many schemes charge the employer for setting up.  Nest passes the set up costs to the employee.

B0bbyEwing

dunstonh said:

'Best' Auto Enrolment WPP Provider?

Best is subjective.   You can get AE schemes that only have a one fund (although most basic ones have a handful,  through to SIPPs with 30,000 or so options.
Some have software that is easy for employers.   Some less so.

With that said, is there a provider or providers that are generally accepted as being better than most (or even worse than most)?

No.  Mainly as there are only handful of providers that cater for small employers.   Larger employers can obtain better terms from the bigger players.  So, it can depend on the employer what the terms are.

Apart from Nest, many schemes charge the employer for setting up.  Nest passes the set up costs to the employee.

Thanks.

And I wondered why Nest was so popular. That's probably a big factor. Of the other people I've discussed with, most are with Nest. There's one with TPP who has since moved jobs & doesn't know who they're currently with. Be interesting to see if that's also Nest.

One thing I did notice though was when things weren't doing so great and my pension with Now was going down in value, or not really moving so much, the person with TPP was still increasing in value. 

Another website I saw placed Now near the bottom, but they were their own provider - Penfold. I'd never heard of them until I googled best AE provider. Obviously they put themselves at the top.

boingy

I'm curious as to why you asked the question. Would you veto a potential employer because of their choice of pension provider?

dunstonh

Another website I saw placed Now near the bottom, but they were their own provider - Penfold. I'd never heard of them until I googled best AE provider. Obviously they put themselves at the top.

Penfold are quite expensive.    
0.75% for first £100k and 0.4% thereafter.  Plus 0.02% Transaction charges (most people ignore TC as its synthetic but you need to know it to compare like for like. ie. if one includes in their disclosures vs another that does not).

Penfold uses a BlackRock multi-asset fund or the Mymap range or HSBC Islamic.

So, whilst they have no initial charges, like Nest, they have a much higher ongoing cost.   So, its just shuffling charges around.

Now is lower cost than Penfold.  £1.75pm fee plus 0.30% p.a.

B0bbyEwing

boingy said:

I'm curious as to why you asked the question. Would you veto a potential employer because of their choice of pension provider?

No I wouldn't but that's not where I'm coming from.

Albermarle

I think NOW are unusual in only having one fund, although with other AE providers who have a choice, only a small % of users ever change from the default find anyway.
Nest have the high initial charge of 1.8%.
So given a choice I would probably look elsewhere from this two.