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Topic: Low cost personal pension providers  (Read 776 times)

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Low cost personal pension providers
« on: April 30, 2018, 12:58:57 PM »
So my wife has a very small company pension pot (<£10k) and since we've moved out of the UK, it won't be getting any new contributions. The current provider charges around 1%, which I think is too high. We'd like to move it to a competitor that offers low-cost index fund investing. (Our IRAs are with Vanguard in the US - too bad they don't service most individual investors directly in the UK.) Anyone know of a personal pension offering that is cost-effective for small balances?


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Re: Low cost personal pension providers
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2018, 02:28:36 PM »
So my wife has a very small company pension pot (<£10k) and since we've moved out of the UK, it won't be getting any new contributions. The current provider charges around 1%, which I think is too high. We'd like to move it to a competitor that offers low-cost index fund investing. (Our IRAs are with Vanguard in the US - too bad they don't service most individual investors directly in the UK.) Anyone know of a personal pension offering that is cost-effective for small balances?

Try an AJ Bell SIPP. I transferred several small pensions to them, saved substantially on fees and now have them consolidated in one place. They also were one of the few UK providers I could find who would open a UK account for a US resident. The transfers were very straightforward.


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Re: Low cost personal pension providers
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2018, 08:20:16 AM »
I asked a similar question a few weeks ago when my current provider (Fidelity) decided they no longer wanted me because they realised I was a US person (discriminatory or what?).

Having done some further research I opted for IWeb, which is also managed by AJ Bell but with a slightly different charging structure (fixed fee vs percentage). Larger pension pots work out cheaper with Iweb - you also need to consider the frequency of trades because dealing charges are also slightly different.

Watch out later in the year because Vanguard have stated they will be launching a SIPP - much depends on whether they have a percentage based charging structure (which I hate!) or a fixed fee basis.


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Re: Low cost personal pension providers
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2018, 12:26:03 PM »
Thanks for the recommendations so far. I didn't know Vanguard had launched a direct-to-investor product at all. I checked out the documentation for their existing ISA and general investing accounts and it says no US persons accepted. Would be great if that changed by the time the SIPP launched but I'm not holding my breath!


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Re: Low cost personal pension providers
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2018, 02:36:02 PM »
It is so frustrating to see so many providers of financial products refusing to accept US persons - clearly running scared of all the IRS reporting obligations that face the rest of us every year!

There have been comments on other forums that this could be viewed as discriminatory and a breach of the Equality Act 2010 on the basis of "race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin". Hopefully a practising lawyer will test this at some time, but I won't hold my breath waiting!


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