Default Investment Funds

The subject of default investment funds for group schemes had been the subject of much debate and will carry mixed feelings amongst many people.

But as a method of ensuring that all members are enrolled into a scheme as quickly and easily as possible so that they can benefit from an employer contribution as soon as possible for them to they achieve their goals there are few better alternatives. It is important to bear in mind that like many things in life faults normally occur not as a result of the actual tool that is used but how it is used.

At Lansdown Place we apply strict methodology to our approach to default funds.

By consulting with your HR team to get an impression of the profile of your workforce (age, salary etc) in combination with a discussion with your pension steering team on, for example, attitude toward ethical investment and the use of active or passive investment management we will then recommend a default fund which will be specific to your scheme and your workforce. By applying these methods this means that any one scheme may have as many as a dozen alternative investment funds for us to recommend as the default for each of our group scheme enquiries.

It is also important to remember that the processes that Lansdown Place follow, mean that pension scheme members also have access to individual planning with reference to their own situation through our team of individual advisers.

When an employee joins one of our schemes, that member can switch their funds or redirect their contributions within the pension scheme at any point in the future to any number of the 200 or so alternative investment options which might be available, in addition to the default fund recommended, with the help of one of our advisers.

In addition to pension investment advice we also operate a pension transfer service.

This means that members of our schemes are able to obtain advice on any of their previous pension arrangements with a view to harmonising these schemes into one more cost effective contract where appropriate.