Pension Bee: A good move?

Interestingly, their website claims to have over 5000 customers which is pretty good for a firm that only became authorised 9 days ago. Nutmeg, who were much higher profile and have been running since 2012 took two years to move from hundreds into the thousands of clients.

Also, Trustpilot has reviews of them going back to September 2015 praising them. Not bad for a company was not authorised back then.

So, I looked deeper and found that there was a authorisation held as an appointed rep of another firm from July 2015 to Aug 2016. So, they had a change of set up and have been running a little longer but still only a year.

From the trust pilot responses, it is clear that it is the mobile generation they are targeting. So, good luck to them. Lets hope they become profitable unlike all the others that have tried. However, the experienced DIY investors and those with a good IFA can do better.

Maybe not a bad solution for very small investors with under £20k who are totally lazy when it comes to research.

Have to say though, I'm a bit disappointed and put off by the tin-foil hat brigade here though. Most forums tend to welcome first-time posters. The content of your post would have been good enough to shoot a spammer down, no need for the point scoring.

First time poster asking about a new company who is virtually unknown is a common spam tactic. Observing it may have been that is not point scoring.

So if I compare them to my current provider (numbers aside) Scottish Widows, who have an online account system from the dark ages, they're much more appealing.

SW were once a very good company. However, Lloyds has starved them of funds since they bought them. Their product range today is largely out-of date and their technology is dire.

So, compared to SW, you would expect any modern option to be better.

We are launching our robo-service shortly and just about every other IFA will be doing the same. And this is likely to be a problem for some of these robo-services. Too many going after too few clients. Plus, the focus is the lower value stuff. So, cost to value ratios are not going to be strong. I am not expecting much of a take up but we will be putting most of our low value stuff on there. Not the high value stuff though as the options they have are better served with full featured options rather than cut down robo-services.

I do expect a number of the robo services to fail due to lack of funds. They are the weakest of the distribution channels. So, just keep a keen eye on it.

About PensionBee: we’re not a robo adviser but an online pension consolidation service.

You use your own product and have pre-built investment options. You have mobile interfaces. So, what is it that doesnt make you robo-advice?

On fees: our fees include all underlying fees such as fund fees and platform fees. Our all-in-fees are often compared to platform fees of others which is incorrect. Off course there are cheaper alternatives around but we’ve priced our plans competitively. We always encourage people to check their fees from their previous provider before they join.

You are new to this forum. Once you have been around a bit longer you will realise that the posters on this site generally focus mostly on charges before anything else. I am not saying that is right as paying peanuts to get something that doesnt do what you want is not ideal. However, you need to understand the audience at this particular site and that many here do have a platform with a simple investment option that does the job they want at lower cost than you or any IFA could arrange (if you include cost of advice).

Your fees are 0.5% to 0.7% depending on risk profile. You are right that you should not be compared with a platform as that is a much more advanced option. However, people here regularly post that they are getting 0.4% or thereabouts on their total costs. You can also buy very simple stakeholder pensions at 0.55% today or personal pensions at 0.4% (or lower if large values). I just did a pension at 0.238%. Although that has an adviser charge to consider. So, you are ballpark to just above for simple options.

Our customers: our customer is on average 39 years old, combines 3 pensions and is in the midst of their working life. They have big decisions to make: changing jobs, buying a property or starting a family. They are switched on when it comes to their finances but they are looking for modern and easy solutions to get on top of their finances. They are not totally lazy and on their mobile phones all day, as suggested in the discussion!

The comment did not say your customers were totally lazy on their mobile phones all day. However, your service is clearly aimed a the mobile/social media style customer who doesn't want to research the best options but wants a simple option. There is a big market for that as its not cost effective for IFAs to pick up that market any more. So, good luck to you. The age suggests you are picking up the younger generation which is more inclined to use your type of service as IFAs generally pick up the larger fund values from the older generation