Transferring your pension savings is a big decision and could have a significant impact on your financial future.

A few things to think about before moving your pension

Investment returns

We offer a range of investment options to best suit your needs, giving you a better chance of your pension being worth more in the long run. Our returns have been strong, and our most popular fund has grown on average by 4.05% per year for the last 5 years (to August 2023). Find out more about our investment performance.

Saving for life

It’s your money and you’re in control. Even if you move jobs, you can keep paying into your pension with us.

We help you save more

We offer great value to our members. Our annual management charge rebate gives back a total of over £1m to members every month.

Putting people first

We’re trusted by over 6 million savers to grow and protect over £17bn of their money, helping them to a better retirement.

Our profit for people approach means we use profits to help people build better lives, not to reward shareholders. We put people – our customers – first, focusing time and effort on making things easier and fairer for them.  Read the key facts you need to know about your pension.

What if I have several pension pots?

If you’ve worked in several jobs, you’ve likely picked up a number of pension pots along the way. You can keep these separate while continuing to pay into your pot with The People’s Pension – even if you’ve changed jobs.

You can contribute to your pension monthly via Direct Debit or through a lump sum payment. And you’ll still benefit from tax relief (subject to current HMRC limits). You can find out more about making additional contributions on our webpage.

You can also combine all your pension pots into one. This can bring several benefits, such as helping you keep better track of your savings for later life.

We help 1,000s of people who transfer and combine their pensions with us every month. It’s quick and easy to do – you just need to fill in a quick online form and we’ll do the rest.

Don’t get stung on charges

Many companies can look appealing on paper but could end up costing you thousands of pounds in extra charges. Not all pension schemes are the same, and some providers may charge you more than others.

It’s always a good idea to compare any charges and benefits before deciding to switch pension providers. Our charges are competitive to give your savings the best chance of growing. And remember, we also offer a rebate on the management charge on pots over £3,000, rewarding you for saving more with us.

Impact on your normal minimum pension age

The normal minimum pension age is the earliest age that you can usually access your pension savings and is set by the government. This is currently set at age 55 and is rising to age 57 from 6 April 2028.

Some schemes, such as The People’s Pension, provide automatic protections that allow you to continue taking your pension money at age 55 after 6 April 2028. However, due to a change in government regulations, these protections aren’t available if you joined the scheme on or after 4 November 2021.

If you joined The People’s Pension before 4 November 2021, this protection is automatically provided to you but may be lost on transferring to a different pension provider. You should consider if the new pension provider will allow you to take your money from age 55 after 6 April 2028 (as other providers may not offer this option).

If you reach age 57 before 6 April 2028, this doesn’t affect you and you can still take your pension savings from age 55.

Find out more

Watch out for scammers

If you’ve received a pension offer that looks too good to be true, more often than not, it is. Visit our pension scams webpage for more information.

Get guidance before making the next step

Before deciding to move your pension to another provider, you should consider seeking guidance or advice. Our guidance team are on hand to answer any questions you may have. You can call them on 0300 2000 555 or use our online contact form.

You can also speak to the following for further guidance:

• MoneyHelper is a free service, backed by the government, offering impartial money and pension guidance.
• Pension Wise is a free and impartial service for the over 50s, backed by the government and provided by MoneyHelper, offering guidance about what to do with your pension savings.
• If you already have a financial adviser, you may wish to speak to them about your retirement needs.
• If you require professional advice, visit Unbiased for help with finding an independent financial adviser. Please note that they may charge you for this service.

If you do want to transfer to another provider

1. Talk to us first. This can often be one of the most important financial decisions you can make, so it’s a good idea to understand what to look out for if you move your savings out of The People’s Pension. Call our guidance team on 0300 2000 555 or contact us online.
2. Find out how much your new provider will charge you and what their investment returns are like (though note past performances should not be relied on.) Here’s our ratings on investment performance, charges and service.
3. Find your account number – it’s alongside your pension balance in your Online Account. Get started by setting up or logging in to your Online Account.
4. Get in touch with the pension scheme provider you want to transfer to and check if they use Origo Options. This is an electronic system which makes transferring quicker and easier for you. If they don’t use Origo Options, you’ll need to contact us to request a paper transfer-out form.
5. The provider you’re transferring to will tell you what to do next.
6. While your transfer is progressing, we may need you to complete ID checks with us – but we’ll let you know. Sometimes we may need to ask you some extra questions about the scheme and/or provider you want to transfer to. This is part of our commitment to The Pensions Regulator’s Scams Pledge to protect our members from falling victim to pension scams.

Please note: When you transfer your money away from The People’s Pension, you usually have to move all of your pension pot in one go. If you have a defined benefit scheme, you can transfer some of your money, (if scheme rules permit this), known as a partial transfer.

What if your employee wants to stay in the pension scheme, but doesn’t want to pay the balance to meet the legal minimum contribution?

An employee can decide that they’d like to reduce their pension contributions so as they’re not meeting the legal minimum contributions. This means the employee will no longer be classed as ‘eligible’ for auto-enrolment’.

It should be their choice to pay below the minimum levels, and their employer is legally not allowed to suggest, encourage or induce them to do so.

Employers can choose to support the employee’s decision to reduce their pension contributions by following our guide,’Paying below the minimum contribution levels’.

Reducing their pension contributions means:

• the employee should remain in the pension scheme as an active member.
• you don’t have to continue paying pension contributions for them – but you can if you want to and can choose how much you’ll pay.
• you may need to re-enrol your employee into the pension scheme every 3 years (sometimes sooner). They’ll then have the opportunity again to see if they’d like to contribute to meet the total legal minimum contributions.
• the employee can decide to join the pension scheme and pay towards the total minimum contributions at any point in the future. They’ll just need to let their employer know in writing. This can be a signed letter or email, if it includes a statement to say it has come from them.

If you choose not to enable your employees to pay below the legal minimum contributions, they can opt out and pay pension contributions directly into their pension pot by Direct Debit. They’ll still benefit from the tax relief on their payments, and you won’t need to contribute. Your employee should be directed to our website if they’d like to set this up.

The People’s Pension is not a defined benefit scheme, it’s a defined contribution pension scheme instead. This means you and/or your employer have been steadily building up your own pension pot over the course of your employment. It’s your money, invested in your name. If your employer goes bust your money is held separately and won’t be available to your employer’s creditors. So, you’ll still have the pension pot you’ve been building up. Your money will be held on your behalf by the Trustee of The People’s Pension. Visit our webpage for more about how we keep your pension savings secure.

If your employer has gone bust, you’ll no longer receive contributions from them going forward. An Insolvency Practitioner will be responsible for gathering all the information on pension payments that your employer should’ve made before the insolvency date. If you wanted to take a small pot lump sum of under £10,000, we’d need to receive all the outstanding contributions first according to HM Revenue & Customs rules.

If you have a new employer, after your previous employer went bust, you can keep paying into your pension pot with The People’s Pension and your new employer may decide to pay into this as well. You can carry on contributing even if you change jobs and your new employer doesn’t or if you become self-employed. Find out how you can make personal payments into your pension.

Regular Direct Debit payment (monthly or annual)

To make personal contributions by Direct Debit you need to:

1. Complete the ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form
2. Complete the Direct Debit mandate
3. Return your completed forms – we recommend you post these to us at ‘Freepost THE PEOPLES PENSION’.

We need you to return the completed ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form and the Direct Debit mandate to us before we can carry out our checks. We won’t be able to begin taking payments from you until we’ve completed our checks.

If we’re unable to check your identity and bank account electronically, we may need to contact you again to ask for more information. It’ll take us up to 10 working days to arrange your Direct Debit with your bank. We’ll write to you once it’s set up.

Lump sum payment through your online banking (sometimes known as BACS)

To make personal contributions through your online banking (sometimes known as BACS), you’ll need to:

1. Complete the ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form
2. Return your completed forms – we recommend you post these to us at ‘Freepost THE PEOPLES PENSION’.

For more information about tax relief, and the amount you can save into your pension and receive tax relief on, take a look at our other knowledge base Q&As:

• What’s tax relief?
• What’s the annual allowance?

If you make direct payments to us or your employer deducts your contributions after tax (this is known as relief at source), then we’ll automatically claim tax relief for you, adding the basic tax rate of 20% to your contributions. If you pay the Scottish starter rate of Income Tax at 19%, we’ll still give you tax relief at 20% and HMRC won’t ask you to repay the difference – so you won’t need to take any action. If you pay more than 20% tax, then you’ll need to complete a tax return to claim back the extra tax relief from HMRC.

Gross tax basis works well if all your employees pay tax:

• Under this tax basis you’d deduct employee contributions from their pay before tax is taken. That’s why we call this tax basis gross.
• So, your employees will automatically get full tax relief on their contributions straightaway.
• But unlike the alternative net tax basis, it means lower paid employees who don’t pay tax will receive a payment to their bank account from HMRC – this will represent the tax relief they would have benefitted from if they were a taxpayer. Find out more.

With the gross tax basis, employee contributions are deducted from their pay before any tax is taken. This means they’ll get their full tax relief straightaway regardless of the band or rate of tax they pay, or whether they live in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK.

Example – John normally pays the basic 20% rate of tax. £50 goes from his wages into his pension savings, before any tax is taken from his pay. This reduces his taxable earnings by £50 so he pays £10 less in income tax.

However, any employees earning less than the standard personal allowance of £12,570 a year (for the current tax year) won’t receive tax relief because they don’t earn enough to pay tax.

If you can afford to, you could think about saving more. The more you pay in, the more tax relief you could get from the government and the more you could get back when you retire. You can always reduce your pension contributions back to the minimum amounts if your circumstances change.

If you want to increase your pension contributions, please talk to your employer first to see if they can set up the extra payments for you. If your employer can’t do this, then you can make personal contributions to your pension by Direct Debit or by a lump sum payment through your online banking (sometimes called BACS). Visit our webpage on workplace pension contributions for more information about making personal payments into your pension.

Even if you move jobs you can keep paying into The People’s Pension. Your former employer will no longer contribute, but your new employer may. You can carry on contributing even if your new employer doesn’t, or if you become self-employed. Simply follow these steps to make personal payments.

You’re also able to transfer your pension savings to another registered pension scheme (subject to the requirements of The People’s Pension and the receiving scheme being met). We don’t charge for transfers out of The People’s Pension but you should check if the receiving scheme charges for transfers.