David Henderson: How to Find Your Lost Pensions (Step-by-Step)

This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.

[00:00] David Henderson: 40% of people don’t know that their pension is invested. 40%. Invested at all, yeah. AI is going to make personalization around your investments and being able to sort of create more engagement between yourself but also a wider community in terms of, you know, pensions leaderboards. How am I doing? How am I doing against my peers? Imagine going to everyone in Wales and saying, here’s £9,600 for your retirement. That’s that’s what’s out there, and it’s only going to get bigger as well. Okay, the amounts are increasing. That is wild. Lots of self-employed people don’t believe in pensions because they’re putting their money into the business and they don’t having the money locked away isn’t right for them. But if they’re putting their money somewhere that is going to fund for their retirement, maybe it’s not, maybe it doesn’t need to be a pension, maybe it could be a property. But it’s making sure you do something is the really important thing, I think. Yeah, it’s great advice. It’s great advice. Whether you smoke or drink can make a huge impact on how much you will get in retirement because you’re basically saying to the provider that due to your lifestyle, you’re not going to be allowed around as long. So make sure you’re honest, make sure you tell them how much you smoke and drink, and it will have an impact, a positive impact, on the amount of money you’ll get in retirement. So I should smoke or drink. You have to have been doing it for 10 years, I think, from memory already. So it’s too late to start for someone you could start either.

[01:09] Sammie Ellard-King: Hello and welcome back to the Money Gains Podcast. We are joined in the hot seat today by David Henderson, who is the head of pensions at Penny, who’s got some interesting stats on whether or not smoking and drinking could actually help you make more money from your pension. Plus, some super interesting insights into how AI and personalization through AI is gonna absolutely revolutionize how we interact with our pensions, but most importantly, our money as well. But for now, stay tuned and let’s get started on the Money Gains Podcast. So, David, welcome back to the Money Gains Podcast, man. How are you? Yeah, I’m good, I’m good. Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here in person as well. We did a full like pensions deep dive quite some time ago, but a lot has changed since then. Yeah, things are always changing in pensions, so it’s always one you can recycle or come back to in six months, definitely, especially at the moment.

[01:55] Sammie Ellard-King: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it’d be good to start this off with something which I feel like a lot of people struggle with when it comes to their pensions, and it’s actually like knowing what they should have in there. Like how much do I need to really be alright? And there was a study done by the um PLSA, and it was ranging between 480 and 720,000 pounds. And when people see that, that’s a big number for a lot of people to even look up to right now, especially ones who haven’t perhaps taken attention with their finances. Um, how do you feel about that study and what’s your view on it? I think it’s a really good study because what it does is it gives you some context in what you’re going to be doing in retirement. So, what it what it’s broken down into is three different types of retirement. So it’s saying, you know, comfortable, moderate, and basic essentially. And it’s saying this is what you’ll need in terms of income. That may be from pensions or it may be from other sources, but it’s saying if you want to live this type of lifestyle, this is what you’ll need. So comfortable for a single person, I think, is around about 41 or 43k. Moderate is about 34k, and basic is around about 14k. So that can be made up of estate pensions. You’ve got about 11k there and 3k from elsewhere. Um, so when you think I think it’s good in terms of contextualizing it, because you can sort of associate it and think, well, I know my parents are retired and this is what they do, or next door neighbor, this is what they do, and this is the type of lifestyle they have. So if you’re looking at comfortable retirement, 43k for a single person, more if you’re inside London. You’re looking at, I think they say, um, a three-year-old car replaced every five years, or every three or five years, you get four weeks away on the Costa del Sol. Nice or somewhere nice in the Mediterranean, let’s say, uh, four-star all inclusive, and you can afford, say, three or four weekends away in the UK. So it sounds like a pretty decent retirement. Yeah. And that’s sort of comfortable retirement. Go down to the next level, and they’re basically saying, you know, you can have one week away in the Costa del Sol and in the Mediterranean. Not as nice as the other people, but you’ll still get a breakaway, and you’ll replace your car maybe every five years or seven years. Um, and you’ll have less, you’ll have less weekly money in terms of what you can afford for food, broadband, etc., clothing. Strip it down to the bottom, one 14k. It’s it’s not a lot. You’ve got one weekend or one trip away in the UK per year. You’ve got limited, I don’t think you even can afford a car based on those, on those numbers. Your clothing budget’s pretty poor. And in terms of eating out, I mean, pretty much forget about it. So they’re really good at sort of saying, this is what you need. Think about how you live now, think about how you want to live in the future, and this is a target to what you want to aim for. And I think the top one, you gave the figure there, it’s somewhere between about 450 and 700k in terms of the point you need, depending on how you set up that income in retirement.

[04:38] Sammie Ellard-King: It’s it’s quite like a strange thing to say to someone when the average pension pot in the UK, there’s conflicting figures from multiple agencies, but let’s say between 65 and 80k, yeah, and it’s different for men and different for women, of course. Yep. Um, like that is a five, six, seven X? Yeah, yeah, which is a lot. Yeah. And so how does the like person listening to this now like take that and go, okay, you know, I if I’m average retirement, let’s say I’ve managed to get 80 grand in my pension, that’s clearly not enough. Yeah, it’s a scary thought. And um, I’ve spoken to lots of clients in the past and previous jobs where you speak to them, they come up to retirement, they’ve got 60, 80k, and then you do a calculation for them in terms of what an annuity will pay or what income they’ll get, and they’re shocked and they they they don’t understand it or don’t realise. I think now the difference is there’s not a lot more tools and support out there to help people. So, one PLSA standards, you you can visualize what you need. Two, you’ve got auto enrollment. So that’s that came in in 2012. So 10 million more people now enrolled in the company pensions. So certainly those people in their 20s and 30s um have benefited from that. People in the sort of 40s and 50s who are on the back end of that just as it came in, they’re probably more of a struggle. Those in the 20s and 30s have their own contributions plus their employer will be typically putting in 3%. So you can build up um a quite sizable pot and maximise your contributions. So do it early, don’t opt out, maximise your contributions, um, and have a look at where you’re investing as well, because that can make a huge difference as well to your 100%.

[06:13] Sammie Ellard-King: Like it’s gonna be something we’re gonna definitely dive into today because it’s one of the big points for me. But I feel like a good way to sort of segue from that. Actually, I’d like to ask you about that study. Have have they factored inflation into that figure? Do you think? Is that something that’s well, because 41k today sounds good, yeah, but in 35 years’ time, if you’re 30 listening to this, yeah, that’s going to be considerably higher. Yeah, I believe it’s factored in, yeah. Right. Yeah, so it’s the equivalent of what you could buy now on today’s rates. Um, so a car, a holiday, et cetera. Yeah. Okay. So it’s not too bad, then then you can work that out, then obviously your wage should increase in line with that, and then give them your pension contributions. Interesting. I think a lot of people struggle with their pensions. Yeah. And it’s just it it my my myself included until you know only four of sort of six years ago, really, um, throughout my twenties, I was like, whatever. And I think it’s time we sort of discuss perhaps a pensions, like the word pension alone is just it’s locked up, I don’t care. And then suddenly I do start caring when I hit 45 because I’m realising, oh god, I should probably have thought about that earlier. Do you feel like there’s a case for a complete pensions rebrand?

[07:26] David Henderson: Yeah. Um yeah, probably probably, and a lot of people discuss this. Um when you say pension, you naturally think of pensioners and you know, bus parties, things like this, which I mean, I’m not being um I’m not being rude to that to those people, we’re all going to be pensioners at some point, so but you just have an association with that word. So perhaps, and you’ve got the fact that, as you said, it’s locked away. But I think things are changing now. I think um through auto enrollment, there’s more engagement, certainly. Through technology, there’s more engagement. And you see the companies coming out now where it’s 100% app focused, people want to engage in their pension a lot more. You can see your pension alongside your other investments as well. So you through open banking or just through different services, you can see your pension alongside your ISAs, your total wealth. It makes it a lot more real. Um, and I think coming forward looking forward as well, the use of AI, which you know, buzzword got to get in there, but AI is gonna make personalization around your investments, around nudgies, around what you can do, um, and being able to sort of create more of engagement between yourself, but also a wider community in terms of you know, pensions leaderboard, how am I doing, how am I doing against my peers? All of these things are help, I think, will help pensions become a lot more accessible and understandable. And auto enrollment in itself, because um that’s targeted a wider audience, has meant that how companies communicate with people has had to change. They’re not just targeting the high net worth, they’ve had to ensure that the way to communicate is um works to a wider audience. So all these things are helping, but yeah, I think a rebrand would certainly be something that would probably be helpful. Um, whether it’s just changing the name or whether it’s changing some of the things around it, like the ability to access some of your pension if you had an emergency, for example. I know that’d be quite popular as well.

[09:13] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, it’s the lock-up thing. Yeah. And I think a lot of it comes down to sort of the psychology of when you’re in your 20s and 30s. Yeah, you’re like, I don’t know who I’m gonna be in that time frame. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell I’m who I am now. Like, why am I thinking about myself in 30 years’ time? And I suppose that’s the challenge, isn’t it? It’s like, you know, you go through that period of life where you’re just still trying to figure out where you’re going, you know, even what career you want to do. Some people are even still studying at university, especially medical students, etc. And they haven’t even worked out what they’re doing. So like it’s difficult for them to go and like, you know, shut how you sit down and do an hour on my SIPP today. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s hard to do, and maybe a pension’s not also the right option for everyone. So if you are employed and your employer offers you a contribution, uh 3% typically, or more, they might offer more, so it’s always worth knowing that. Then a pension is a very good option because it’s free money. The alternatives, there’s there’s Lifetime ISAs, and if you’re just trying to get on the property ladder, then that might be a good option. But to do something is the main thing. Lots of self-employed people don’t believe in pensions because they’re putting their money into the business and they don’t having the money locked away isn’t right for them. But if they’re putting their money somewhere that is gonna fund for their retirement, maybe it’s not, maybe it doesn’t need to be a pension, maybe it could be a property, but it’s making sure you do something is the really important thing, I think.

[10:33] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, it’s great advice, it’s great advice. I think we struggle with uh like the whole well, our company sets it up for us and it’s done. They send me a letter in the post, I open it, I might read the first page, and then it gets you know put in the the paper drawer as such, and I I think about it maybe once I’ve left. Um but there’s a process that people should go through when that letter comes in, especially if you are sort of younger, um, because often companies will put you into schemes, and due to the fact that they do have some of their older workforce in there, that default pension as such might not be the best one for you.

[11:18] David Henderson: Yeah, so true. So when companies set up a scheme for employers, they’ll work with the provider and they’ll come up with a default fund, and 90% of people are put into these default funds. So I think it’s 500 billion in default funds in the UK. 90% of people will go into these funds, and a lot of people won’t check them between that point at age 20, 25, whenever, to 67. Um, and then it can be a bit of a shock. And as you said, they’re there to sort of suit everyone. So they’re there for Jeff, who’s 25, and Jill, who’s 60, and they’re trying to just make sure that they’re they’re not too risky. It’s not going to blow back on the employer if things go wrong. Some of them are overly cautious in the first five years because they don’t want the people who have signed up for it, they don’t want it to blow up in the first five years, and then they opt out and say, hey, this pension’s no good for me. So it’s really important that you look at how it’s invested. Is it right for you, your own attitude to risk? I mean, if you’re younger, then definitely you can take more risk. There’s a study that came out recently, I think they looked at um default funds across the major providers, 26, 29 different providers, the default funds, the main providers. I think 90% of them had under underperformed the benchmark, which is huge. 90%. 90%. And it’s because you’re not looking at the balance of how much is invested in equities. So some of them are overly risk averse. And as we said, if you’re young, if you’re in your 20s and 30s, you can afford to take a lot more risk. So have a look at the default fund. They’ll put it into they’ll put it, put you into that typically when you start. You have the option to change that. If you don’t know how to do it, phone up your phone up the scheme, speak to your employer. Your employer will typically have a team that can help you. If it’s a small employer, find out who the pension’s with, call them up, say, what are my options? I mean, the default fund now, can you send me through a list of options and just do a little bit of research? And there’s loads of different tools um online where you can find and compare and contrast performance. So just have a look, play around. It’s actually quite easy to do, but it’s just the first the first step, getting the information and finding out what the options are.

[13:19] Sammie Ellard-King: So someone listening to this right now can do that. And is it quite a quick process? It should be a quite a pri sorry, it should be a quick process, yeah. Um you can do it online if you’ve got an app or a desktop, you can do it online. You can probably do it with a phone, you can do it paper-based, and it should just be a case of instructing them and you know, it’s it’s done that day. So easy to do. I think a lot of people get scared because they see the words, you know, equities and bonds and 20% this, 30% this. And that’s where they like, you know, would rather just bury their head in the sand and like not but actually, you know, you can probably look pick up and everything you need to know about that in a couple of hours. Yeah, definitely, definitely. There’s so much information out there online. Um, comparison tools, comparison sites, giving you tips on, you know, what your risk profile might be. So play around and see what see what’s suitable for you. I mean, having 80% equities might be good for for you, but the person sign next to you, they may not feel might not feel comfortable with that. So just understand what risk means in terms of your your investment journey, but find out the information first and make a decision. It is easy to do.

[14:23] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, the way I look at this with people is like, okay, it takes you, let’s say, even if it took you 10 hours, right, to learn. It won’t take 10 hours, it won’t take 10 hours, but like worst case scenario, if you’re a slow learner, it takes you 10 hours, right? And then you but then you get 3% from your default fund and your other fund might, you know, example, right? This is not financial advice, might give you seven or eight percent. Yeah. That uplift over 30 years, if you work that out on a time per hour basis, is mental. Yeah. So just taking that time can be like just an enormous difference. And actually, as we said before, it’s a couple of hours. Yeah. So then if you wear that out, you know, that could be 60, 70, 18 grand an hour or more. It’s a big difference. And it’s we’re talking about those standards of retirement uh when we first started, and it could be the difference between going up or down one of those. Um, so yeah, do it. Find out the information, speak to your employees, speak to the scheme, and see if you can make an informed decision around it.

[15:20] Sammie Ellard-King: A lot of um providers will have a smaller selection, but some will have really big selections. If they do, what’s what do you feel like is the best way of approaching that too? Yeah, so some some providers might have say if you have a workplace SIPP, for example, you could have thousands of different options there in terms of funds and terms of equities you can choose from. But typically what they’ll do is they’ll create best buy tables. So they’ll say, you know, here’s our our top 50, here’s our recommended funds um that they think are suitable or you know, they’re guiding you towards. So have a look at that because it can be overwhelming if if you’re in a SIPP, for example, and you’re new to it, there’s a lot of choice there. Um, so yeah, go to go to the scheme, see what they’ve got in terms of best buy tables and take it from there. Yeah, especially like when it is a SIPP as well, and like someone like Hargreaves or uh you know, even Invest Engine or other platforms like that where it is like, okay, wow, I’ve now look at this list. You have 450 funds I can pick from? Like, where do I even start? I don’t know. That that guy said to do this one, but they don’t have that, or it’s called something different, and the names can be really confusing.

[16:21] David Henderson: So that’s the selling point in the first place. You say, Oh, we’ve got like a thousand different funds you can choose from. Great. It comes to the point of doing it. Where do I start? Yeah. But Hargreaves do a Best Buy, um, AJ Bell, all these different companies do best buy. So see what’s an offer. Look how they’ve uh narrowed it down for support. Yeah, absolutely. Now, one of the big things is that people will have had previous jobs and often not looked after their pension pot when they’ve left it. And they may have multiple providers. I know I consolidated mine and I had six different providers. Well, okay. And so it was quite, you know, I was dotting around like wildfire in my 20s, I was doing two, three years a per employer. Yeah. And every single one had different pension provider, and it was, you know, quite an experience. But that gap between people finding money, it’s like down the sofa, where’s it been? And that lost pensions gap’s enormous, and it’s getting bigger, isn’t it?

[17:20] David Henderson: Yeah, it’s getting bigger. It’s 31 billion at the moment, and that’s gone up 20, I think it was in 2018, it’s gone up by 16% or something. It’s increasing basically. So this is this is an unintended consequence of auto-enrollment, which we’re talking about. More people get enrolled into a pension, but more people switching jobs. And if you’re not with a large employer, typically, they might not give you the support. So when you leave and you have your exit interview, they might not say, Oh, by the way, don’t forget about your pension. You might just leave, and that’s it. So there’s lots of these pensions dotted around and people changing jobs more, so it’s more of an issue as well. It’s actually easy to track them down. Um, but there is 31 billion out there. I think the average pot size is around about 9,500, slightly more for people over 55. I think it’s about 13,000. And there’s and that means there’s three point five, sorry, 3.3 pots out there. So to put that in context, 31 billion, that’s the GDP of Papua New Guinea. 3.3 million, that’s the population of Wales. So imagine going to everyone in Wales and saying here’s £9,600 for your retirement. That’s that’s what’s out there, and it’s only going to get bigger as well. The amounts are increasing.

[19:11] Sammie Ellard-King: That is wild. 31 billion in Wales. Like, yeah. I mean, Chris, who who’s in our team as well, he lives in Wales, we should probably tell him to look up his lost pension. He might have nine and a half grand sitting there. But that money, again, is money that can be put to better use. And if you’re listening to this right now and that sounds like you, even if you’ve got one missing, there’s still money that you can go and track down. Now, I’ll tell you a story. My mum worked in next in her, I think it was her first job, did it till she had before just before she had me. Yeah. Um was there eight, nine years, and uh left, did life, yeah, and then a couple of months back found 65,000 pounds in her lost pension that was sitting there. So from going f for her, you know, bless her, she she’s a lovely person, but she spent every penny that she’s ever had in her pocket. She looks great. But um she’s not she wasn’t in the best position to retire.

[20:17] David Henderson: Yeah. And you know, I think that was was becoming ever more apparent, and that money potentially is gonna be life-changing for her. Um but if you’re younger and then you have time to bring it under control to maximize it. What’s the process there? Yeah, so the process, so the term lost pensions, some people say is not the right word, it’s misplaced, whatever. You don’t have the information in front of you. So find out that there’s different ways you can do it. So it’s government pension tracing service, you can go onto there and go through that’s those steps and they’ll try and find it for you. Or you can use various apps and services, Penny being one. Um, and you basically just type in your details, you put who your previous employer was, national insurance number, address, if you’ve previous addressed, name change, because that’s why people lose their pensions or lose track of them. Name changes, yes, changing uh address, you know, all these things just add up. Um so put in your details and see what it brings up. We’ve found pensions, um smallest pension, 0.01p, largest pension, uh about 450k, and the most number of pensions, um, about 16 for one individual. So it is a big from different employers. From different employers, yeah. Wow. And some of these people, like your mum, generally don’t know. Some people, when you speak to them, they’ll say, Well, I kind of knew I had that one there, but that one was a surprise and it was 45k or it’s 30k. And it makes a big difference in your retirement plan. You were talking earlier about how do we get, I mean, might get to that 80 figure, or how do we get ideally get to that bigger figure, where if you’ve got 65k that you didn’t even know about. And when you’re speaking to a lot of these, a lot of people, so I speak to a lot of the Penny users to sort of understand the journey so we can improve our service. And a lot of people think that when they leave their employer, the money stays where it was, and they’ll say, I didn’t realise that was mine. I thought my employer kept it. Yeah. So whether it’s 500 pounds, 65,000, or whatever it is, it’s your money. And 15 of them, if you’ve got 15 different pots, it all adds up. And if it’s one pot, it’s it’s your money. So make sure you track it down, make sure you realise what you’re entitled to and find it. And then you don’t need to transfer it. Maybe you just find it and say, actually, I’ve looked at where it is, I’m happy with that. It’s got a low annual management charge, it’s performing well. I called up the company, the engagement was good, I’m happy. And lots of people when they track down their pensions will say it’s not so it’s it’s it’s a buzz finding the money, but the biggest thing is just peace of mind that I I know where I am now. I’m not thinking what if, what if. So find it and then make a decision from there. You know your number. You know your number, yeah. Yeah, you know where you are on that PLSA chart or towards it anyway.

[22:49] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, and that’s a good point. And I think something to say as well is that you know, not everyone knows their pension’s invested. Yeah. And that’s like a big thing. It’s like, well, what? They invest the money? Yeah. Oh, and I love what you said there as well, because we we have come across that a lot in the comments that we get on when we do uh pension videos, is that you know, I just thought the money was my employer’s money. And actually, you know, that’s your money, you can bring it under control, and that money’s growing, and that’s why it’s so important to check what plan you’re on to set up for your growth. So with Penny, then you’re like a detective service almost. Uh yeah, the pension detectives. Yeah. Yeah, I think we’ve had that before, actually. Um, so we are an app-based service um and we basically track down lost pensions. So we’ve got our own in-house proprietary technology we’ve developed that means that we have a pretty good success rate of tracking down lost pensions. To date, we’ve tracked down over 400 million in lost pensions. Um, and when we do that 400 million. 400 million, yeah.

[23:47] Sammie Ellard-King: Wow, that’s amazing. Yeah. So when we do that, you’ll log into the app, you’ll set up your profile. When we find one of your pensions, or when we find your mum’s next pension, she might be out shopping, having a good time, uh, enjoying her life, and she’ll get a little ping on a phone to say, Hey, we found your pension. And again, when I speak to the best notification ever, isn’t it? Yeah, it is, yeah. I’ve spoken to users, I think there’s one chap who had six or seven different pensions, and he said each time it pinged, he said it was like winning the lottery. Yeah. And these weren’t like life-changing mats, but it’s just, you know, add them all together. It’s a nice little ping on your phone to say, hey, here’s 10 grand or here’s 20,000, you know. So we do that, we track down the pensions, we make sure that there’s no benefits that are going to be lost on transferring. And then if the user wants to transfer across, then transfer across to a plan that we then manage for them. And then they can manage it all online on the wrap um going forward.

[24:34] Sammie Ellard-King: Oh, so you’re managing in-house as well? Yeah. So we have three simple options in terms of investment options, two funds for HSBC and one with Vanguard, which is an ethical option, and we’re going to be adding to that. But we have the reason we have that at the moment is because the types of user that we were attracting were not, you know, not spreadsheet people. These people hadn’t engaged much with the pension, so we wanted to give them something that was easy to understand and with brands that they recognise and can trust. Yeah, I think this is such a cool service. Like it is, because it’s like, you know, you’re you’re turning up and you’re showing up for people, you’re putting money back in their pockets and then giving them a really simplistic plan to like go out and make it happen. Uh, I love it. Oh, cool, cool. Yeah, it’s really cool. Well, get your mum to do it, she might have another one somewhere. I was just about to say I’m gonna get my mom on it. I I think for there’s uh the problem I had as well is actually you mentioned name changes. It was a big one for me because I’ve got a double barrel name. Yeah. And they were missing the hyphen.

[25:27] David Henderson: Yeah. And so they were uh they weren’t tracking all of them. And then when I gave that information to the consolidation team, there there suddenly three more popped up out of nowhere. And now they’re all they were just not tracking that. So I think that’s really important, especially if you’ve got like a longer or a harder to spell name, it’s much more easier to miss out on S or X, Y, and Z when you’re searching for these things or somebody else is searching for these things for you. And there’s lots of that. I mean, the pensions industry, there’s lots of sort of consolidated books, or another provider comes in and takes over and they put you on their systems and migrate you over, and things like that where your name is different or a slight typo can mean it it can make it harder to track it down. So yeah. Human error. Yeah, 100%. But yeah, just be uh persistent and keep going. And one of the big things that people are talking about at the moment is obviously being able to see this kind of information digitally. And you you’ve been doing a little bit of work on this, but it it’s it’s very interesting, isn’t it? That the government are working on something for 2026.

[26:25] David Henderson: Yeah. Pension dashboard. Yeah. Yeah. So the pension dashboard is kind of what I mean, I’ll say kind of what Penny are doing already in that finding all your pensions, putting them in front of you and saying, hey, this is where you are. But it’s gonna have things like state pension, it’s gonna have a lot more guidance in there. Um, so the pension dashboard is a cross-industry way of creating something um that anyone can log into. So the first initiation of that is gonna be the Money Helper Service. So it’s a government-backed service that will be launching in 2026, as you say. I think it’s towards the end of the year in 2026, if it stays on track. Um, and they’re doing some testing on that at the moment. What they’re trying to do is make sure, so for some pension companies, there’s a real like kick up the backside to say, hey, your data needs to be a lot more accurate than it is, because Sammie can’t find it because he’s got a double-barreled name. Well, that’s what they’ve had to do. They had to clean up all the data, digitize it, and make sure that when they’re getting those pools for information to say, what pensions have you got, that it’s accurate and they can pull it up to a certain accuracy. So all companies are going to have to at some point attach themselves to this dashboard. The first initiation of that will be a government version. So you go in through the government gateway, um, it’ll just pull up your pensions and say, here’s the information, and that’s it. Nothing further.

[27:34] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah. What the industry wants, or a lot of the industry wants as well, is to create what’s called a commercial dashboard. So same information being pulled up, but it’s presented to you through your penny app or your your Aviva app or whoever, um, because you’re used to dealing with Penny or Aviva. So your user journey will be it’ll feel a lot more natural than coming out and going to a government dashboard. And then going back and making decisions. Yeah, so so that’s that’s the direction of travel. And we’ve seen this in other countries. Um, in the Nordics, they’ve done this. So they had the government dashboard to start with, um, have a few in it iterations of that, and then commercial dashboards come on the scene. And what you’ll see is the government dashboards might have um sort of a 5% hit rate, probably more than that. But the the Norwegian one, I think it has a 30 30% more take up than the government one because you use that user journey and because you’re comfortable with that provider. So we want to create that in the UK as well, have more commercial dashboards to give people more access and feel that they can access their pensions more. So I think that’s gonna come. I think it might be the government dashboard comes in uh 2026. There’ll be a couple of years of what can we learn from this, you know, a lot of feedback, feedback loops in terms of what users are doing, what data’s coming out of it, and then commercial dashboards come in afterwards and say, hey, we want to service, make sure the whole market’s serviced here.

[28:52] Sammie Ellard-King: So just to break that down, that’s like literally signing in and seeing, okay, you know, your man with 16 pensions would see that. Yeah. And the first steps of that, it’s not there’s not gonna be any action off the back of it. It’s just gonna say, This is what you’ve got. There’s no sort of marketing messages in there to say, Yeah, this is what you got, why don’t you transfer it? Yeah, nothing like that. Purely education, which is good. So people won’t be pushed into making decisions that they that aren’t suitable for them, and nor should they be. So, yeah, first iteration of that, 2026, and anyone will be able to go in and see what they’ve got. So it’s a huge step forward, and it’s gonna bring about a lot of engagement in pensions, which is great because digitize, digitize, yeah. It’s just great. You’re gonna have your Martin Lewis moment where he pops up on ITV on a whatever time, eight o’clock on a Wednesday, and then everyone logs into a dashboard. So hopefully we’ll be able to cope with like millions of people logging in, but it’s gonna bring a lot more engagement, which is always a good thing for pensions. I’m gonna want to see it.

[29:44] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, everyone is. Yeah, I think it’s just like you know, it’s that like okay, cool. I have X. Yeah. Again, it’s like that same feeling, and uh it it will change everything. And really interesting about the commercial dashboards because I think that that’s a level up, like they uh okay, and can they get smarter with what their recommendations are based on where that person is in their journey as well? Like you are X age, you are at this position. Yeah, I think these types of products might work better for you. I think so, and you’re sort of verging, there’s a few different angles there. AI, open bank, open banking, open data, open finance, whatever you want to call it. Um, advice guidance reviews, some of the FCA are looking at, you know, how you nudge how you nudge people along the journey, people that’s by saying people like you might consider this. So it’s huge potential there. Some of the providers have actually started working on open banking, so bringing in you know, your banking services alongside your pension. And the more you know about someone and the behaviour, the better you can personalize the messages that you’re sending to them. So that’s such a good thing to do. And I think that’s the future of finance going forward that you know you have this one dashboard and that’s your you know your control center for all your finances and it’s tracking all your spending. We were talking earlier about um before about rebranding pensions and what you could do. Well, if Revolut came in and did pensions, would you have you know Roundup Pots? Yeah, all these different things that they offer as standard, yeah. What would they offer? So I think it’s there’s huge potential in the sort of coming coming years for pensions.

[31:08] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, so like kind of doing all the cool innovative stuff that we see with our sort of Monzo pots and those types of things, but also like contributing to pensions as well. Yeah, I think that’s that’s so true. I didn’t think of it like that before, and actually that’s like you will treat it differently when you see it next to something else. Yeah, like it’s just when it’s tucked away and you’ve got to phone up, you know, not not naming names, but I did spend an hour and a half on the phone to Nest the other day, like and you know, it’s like that was an hour and a half. I just want to log in, and when I log in, I can’t use it, or like and I’ve had this with other providers as well. I’m not calling them out in any way, shape, or form. Um, though I do have my gripes, but um but that’s what that’s really important because that’s what providers need to not do is focus too much on digital and forget about the phone service. You need to have that safety net underneath because 100%, this is a topic that not people, not many people are 100% comfortable with. And particularly when you come up to retirement and you’re making that big decision, press the button, this is what’s gonna happen to your pot. You’re going, you know, how you’re gonna set it up. People will go through the whole journey digitally, but at some point they might just want to pick up the phone and say, Does this sound right? Am I doing the right thing? What happens next? So it’s really important. And that engagement part, so many people tune out because they’ve spent an hour on the phone to whoever music, yeah, no, whole music, yeah. And they give up and they say, I can’t be bothered for my pension. They just it it’s really damaging. There’s a huge it should be more emphasis on those telephone support services because that’s the first point of contact for a lot of people.

[32:40] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, totally. You know, I when we I went to a um SME for Labour committee um pre-the election, and one of the big things was like money hubs and human touch points. Yeah, though I had my gripes with that as a system, the human touch point of it I agreed with because there’s only so much, you know. My mum’s even now, or you know, my dad or my or people of of that age struggle to like what’s WhatsApp? Yeah, it’s you know, so like oh it’s all app based. Yeah they’re in shock, and actually they’re the ones that are most in need of that information right now because they’re gonna be able to use it or are even of age or potentially retiring soon. And it’s what they’re used to as well. You know, we’ve we’ve grown up or to some extent grown up digitally, so we’re used to that. That’s our expectation. I don’t actually want to speak to someone when I’m doing something. If I do, if I have to phone someone up, that’s not for me. But as a huge mass of population out there that it’s really important that they get that human interaction as and when they need it. Yeah, totally.

[33:43] Sammie Ellard-King: We have um an aging population in the UK, to say the least, and uh that’s uh putting quite a lot of pressure on the state pension and then and even more so in the news. Yep. Um there’s a lot of rumors around means testing. And I’d love to know your thoughts on this at the moment because it it has been sort of kicking off in quite a few different circles. Yeah, I think the stats around how many people are gonna be over 65 in 20 years are quite frightening. And it’s yeah, it’s happening to a lot of countries. Um, it is gonna affect the pension system. Some people are quite dubious about the state pension, you know, how long it’s gonna be around for means testing comes up every now and again. It’s last couple of weeks, it’s been mentioned a few times. I don’t think it’s gonna be means tested in the in the sort of this parliament or next, because I think it’s a bit of a political minefield. Um, you’d have to be very brave to do that. Um hopefully we don’t put this podcast out and then says it’s gonna be means tested, but I don’t think it would be. Um, I think there are some tough discussions to be had about state pension, what it means going forward, um, particularly with that aging population. Is if you’re starting from today, is it the right thing to do? Probably not. Is it just a bit of a giant bonsai scheme? Some people would say that, but you know. So it’s probably a discussion to be had there, and whether that means it’s it’s talk of you know pensions, commissions and things, to think about things longer term, and that’s maybe a good thing to be to be looking at. What’s the future of the state pension? How can it be more fair? Maybe means testing is something in some way in the future, or maybe just flip it on his head. There’s there’s something in America called Invest America, and it’s basically saying, look, forget about pension. If we just give every newborn a thousand pounds at birth, compounding would do the rest. Yeah, and that’s such a great start. And also it’s improving their financial education as well, because they can all hold up their phones during class and say, Hey, this is how’s your how’s your invest America fund doing? So it’s solving that educational piece as well. So I’m sorry going off tangent there. But no, I love that. That’s really I think it’s such a cool idea. Um, but that’s hard to do because at some point there’s a cutoff, but you know, it’s a balancing act.

[35:50] Sammie Ellard-King: And they’re angering the people that have been national insurance contributing pre that. Yeah, exactly. There’s lots of talk about money gone. Yeah, there’s lots of talk about you know, poke poking the finger at like rich pensioners, but these guys are paid into the system. So, you know, it’s it’s hard to just flip it. But I think it is a discussion to be had, but I don’t think there’s gonna be means testing in the next, in the foreseeable future, anyway. I think the struggle comes where the original state pension, the average life expectancy was early 40s. Yeah. And then now that’s creeping up where you’ve then got to cover someone for like 25, maybe even a third of their entire life. And the cost of the UK government, which we already know is you know, up shits creek without a paddle and then debt up to their eyeballs. Yeah. And the cost of that debt has been increasing recently, which is then putting even more pressure on the system. They have to borrow at a higher rate. And then what does that do? That affects the economy uh on quite a high level. Um there’s a problem there, right? And so somehow, somewhere, we need to try and figure out a solution.

[36:50] David Henderson: Yeah. There’s a breaking point. There is. Yeah. And I think people being much more aware that the need to uh, you know, provide for themselves. Um, there will be a state pension, but do make sure you’ve got your own provisions. So going back, track your pensions, make sure they’re all you you know where they all are, make sure you’re maxing out your contributions, do your own bit, engage with it, uh enroll as soon as you can and do something. Yeah, what I like to say to people is like treat that as like a little bonus if it’s there. Yeah, great. Yeah, but if it’s not, like the rest is on you, mate. Yeah. Like you’ve got to like really take control of that because it’s not something to rely on. I mean, it’s two two seven a week at the moment. It’s what’s that covering in today’s day and age? You know, it’s shopping Aldi these days. Oh, these cheapless are there. But yeah, you also look at you know changing patterns as well of home ownership. I think it’s I think it’s more expensive. You’re a renter. The idea, I mean, uh going back to previous generations, the idea would be that when you hit retirement, your mortgage is paid off. That’s not going to be the case for a lot of people now. So your expenses are a lot more, healthcare costs might be more depending on what’s happening with the NHS. You know, you’ve got all these different factors to consider. Um, so yeah, there’s there’s lots of lots playing into this.

[37:59] Sammie Ellard-King: You make a great point there. I read uh article last week about their multiple mortgages now going into late 70s, which is scary, pretty wild. Yeah, you’ll be at state pension age by that point, technically. Yeah. And so you’ll be paying off your mortgage, receiving state pension, potentially not being able to work because of your age. Yeah. Which is very scary, right? Yeah, that’s not a good place to be. That’s uh a bit of a doom trap there. Yeah. And you’ve not got really many options there to get yourself out of that. Because like you say, you’re gonna find it. Downsize. Downsize, yeah. Which is not an option for most people, they’ve got a custom lifestyle, so it’s hard for them to change. But I do think society’s moved it in whereas previously state pension was in place because people had hard labour and they worked very, very different different lives to what we lead today. Yeah, like we most of us sit behind a computer all day and tap tap away on our fingers, and it’s still mental strength that was required to get through the day. But we’re not battering our bodies in a factory floor or a coal mine like we used to. Yeah. And so, you know, there are people that are if you’re using your mind, your mind can still be very functional up until your late 90s in a lot of cases. So it doesn’t I I I see where they’re coming from, but then I also think, well, actually, you know, my granddad right now, he’s in his late 80s and he’s sharp as a toolbox. You put a computer in front of him, he would be fine.

[39:26] David Henderson: Well, it’s it’s not that same tipping point. So it’s not that thing that when you hit a certain age, you retire, you get your carriage clock, and that’s it, you’re off. You’re never doing anything else. A lot of people want to sort of gradually go into retirement and you know, do a bit of consultancy work or do two or three days a week. And that’s about finances, but like you say, keeping your mind sharp as well and staying healthy because you do know you’re going to be retired for 20, 25 years, a bit longer, depending where you live. The life expectancy is quite a variance between Blackpool and say Chelsea and Kensington. So, yeah, it can depends where you live. Totally. Yeah, access to uh the the best healthcare, etc., and lifestyle lifestyle exactly. Yeah, yeah, it does it varies massively where you you live in the country as well. And actually, like the amount that you need varies massively by where you live in the country, because if you you know living in Chelsea, then Whole Foods is a bit expensive these days.

[40:15] David Henderson: Yeah, there’s no Wetherspoons in Chelsea, yeah, exactly. Or who knows if we’ll have a Wetherspoons after the recent budget uh increase, the amount of national insurance they ever had to pay out. Yeah, this is a couple hundred million pounds, which is a pretty wild increase when they’re already raising thin budget. But let’s say this person’s into this, they’re like, David, this all sounds great, right? 480 grand in you know, if I get to that point, yeah, happy days, I’m really there. I’m I’m coming up to retirement now. What happens then? When you hit retirement, so you’ve got a couple of options. So you’ll have your pot of money, um, and if you want to take an income from it, you can typically take up to 25% as a tax-free cash lump sum. And then you can do one of two things. So if you do that, you can go into something called an annuity, which is guaranteed income for life, or you can go into something called income drawdown. Now, an annuity is what it says. It’s you say, Here’s my pot of 400k. I’m gonna take 100k if that is tax-free cash. What income can you generate for me for the rest of it? So from that remaining 300k, how much are you going to give me? And that will vary depending on which provider you go to. So, like when you’re renewing your home insurance, don’t stick with the existing provider. Shop around. And there’s loads of comparison tables and tools out there. Shop around for the best rate because that makes a big difference. Make sure you don’t lie about how much you smoke or drink, because it’s one time when it benefits you. So lots of people are speaking. It benefits you because you’re going to die younger. So they pay you out more.

[41:41] Sammie Ellard-King: Ah. So when I I’ve spoken to the clients in the past and said, I’m going to ask you a question now, and this is the time to be truthful. Before they say, Oh no, I don’t smoke or don’t drink. You say to them, if you do smoke, you do drink. Yeah, tell me, tell me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m drinking now. Uh tell, tell me, because it will make a big difference. So you can and then you can write in different options into the annuity, all of which will sort of lower the income. So you can put a five-year guarantee in or a 10-year guarantee. It means if something happens to you in the first five years, it’ll still be paid out in full for those for that time. Or 10-year guarantee is a different version of that, or you can have escalation written into it, or you can have a spouse’s pension, so 50%, two-thirds, or 100%. So something happens to you, half of it will still be carried on, paid to your partner, wife, whoever. So that’s an annuity. Drawdown is slightly different. That um say, for example, you’re in a SIPP, self-invested personal pension, you can come up to retirement and say, right, I want to take 25% tax free cash, that’s mine. The rest of it then remains invested. So as it was within your SIP, it remains invested. Now you can leave it there and just let it tick over, or you can take sums from that as and when you need. But the important thing to do that is there’s lots of concerns that um something called the pension freedoms came out, I think it was 2016, which made drawdown a lot more accessible to individuals. And the concern there was people just gonna raid their pension pots. I think um the the newspapers went with everyone’s gonna go and buy a Lamborghini with their pension. It’s like, really are they? But the the the concern is a Mazda. Maybe Mazda. Um go and spend it on day one. But it’s important that you you manage it effectively. Yeah, um, so those are the two options an annuity or drawdown. Annuity is a fixed income drawdown, it’s more flexible, and you control how much you take out of it.

[44:31] Sammie Ellard-King: So if I go annuity for first, what does that actually mean for me? Am I paying this provider a fee for handling this for me? And like where what happens to my 300k? Your 300k goes across to them, and then in return, they give you a promise that they’re gonna pay you an amount that you’ve agreed for the rest of your life. For the rest of the life. Yeah. That’s really quite simple to understand. It’s really simple to understand, but people don’t drawdowns more popular because people don’t like the psychology of giving all their money away or over to a provider and then getting hit by a bus the next day. It’s that concern. Yeah. Whereas the reality is if you ask people what you want in retirement, they will say a fixed income guaranteed for life, but they don’t want an annuity. So we’re talking about rebrands earlier, and annuity is something that’s prime for a rebrand because most people should have some kind of guaranteed fixed income so that they’re not in retirement and get hit by fluctuations in the market. Um, just as they’ve got, you know, if you need to access your cash and something the market’s tank, well, that could take a huge chunk of your portfolio. That’s a very good point. A person that’s an annuity is not worried about that. Sit back, relax, they know what they’ve got. Um, but it’s a branding thing, it’s a psycho psychological thing as well. Totally. So if you do get hit by the bus day after you hand them the money, that 300K is their money now. Unless you’ve written in a guarantee or a spouse’s payment. So there are ways around it, but it’s still that s psychological thing about I don’t want to give all my money away. But you can do a mixture of the two. You got four hundred K, say, yeah.

[46:00] Sammie Ellard-King: Can you can you double this up? Yeah, you can mix, mix and match, yeah. And that’s a good way of doing it. So you have the flexibility on one side, but you have the guaranteed income as well. So, you know, best of both worlds. If you can afford to do that, you need a a kind of a bigger pot to make that worthwhile, but it’s doable. Yeah, yeah. And then drawdown. So I’ve taken my 100k, that’s my 25%. Yep. And then my drawdown, if I do draw down from that money, there’s income tax on that. There is, yep. So how does somebody work that out if they’re say part-time working into their retirement, etc.? How are they going to work out what they can and can’t take before they start hitting those those 20%? Well, so you’ve got your limits in terms of what you can take. Uh the provider will calculate that for you. So it’s all they do, they do it through payroll. So it’s just paid out to you automatically and they’ll work out the tax implications of that for you. So it’s it’s pretty straightforward to do.

[46:48] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, that’s why I wanted to ask you because it’s it’s straightforward. But people get so scared about that. And uh even like people uh we get the question inside and they’re saying, So, well, what actually happens? We’re gonna get there, like what do you do? And it’s it’s actually very simple. Yeah, I I saw stat the other day, I think it was 70% of people over 45 in a pension don’t know what they’re gonna do or how they’re gonna take the money from the pension because it’s that engagement thing again, and people’s misconceptions about what it means that we’re not in DB final salary land anymore. You you have to make a decision about what you’re going to do. Yeah. Um, and for some people, the first, well, first or few engagements they have is when they get that letter say, Hey, you’re retiring next week or next month, what do you want to do? And there are there are touch points like five years, 10 years, where the providers will write out to them and say, look, you’re retiring soon, or you’re coming up to your selection retirement age, think about these things. But does that get filed away or does it get looked at? So again, uh same message really, when you’re starting your pension, engage a bit, understand what you’re doing. As you’re approaching retirement, you know, just look around, see what the options are, see who’s offering their different options, different drawdown providers, shop around for the best rate for an annuity, it makes a huge difference. Yeah, totally.

[47:56] Sammie Ellard-King: Um, we get hit banded around as well. There’s like the 4% drawdown rule. Do you adhere to that, or do you think that that’s a good way of sort of working out what you can take? There’s people that say just take the natural yield. So just take the yield off the investments, and that’s a good way of doing it. So you’re not not burning down your pot. Um, I think it’s just you know, different strokes for different folks depends what else you’ve got out there, whatever income you’ve got coming in. Make sure you’re managing it, make sure you’re not taking it all too much on day one, because once you deplete that pot, it’s hard to make it up again in the future. So, yeah, there’s lots of different rules out there. I I don’t have a certain one that I’d say do that. I just think think about how long you’ve been in retirement for, how it’s invested, your risk profile, um, and whatever income you’ve got coming in as well.

[48:41] Sammie Ellard-King: I think they say that because it’s like, oh, if you’re getting six percent but you’re taking four, then it’s still growing and you still have the money. And that’s it’s a it’s a way of doing it. Yeah, the same as natural yield. You’re not touching the main pot. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, something you said that I think is really important to touch on. And I read an article by uh a good friend of the podcast, Andrew Craig this morning, was about like the stock market crashing just before you hit retirement. Yeah, like it’s quite a scary thing for someone if they’ve got 600k and it drops by 40% and I’m supposed to retire next year. What’s your opinion on how people can pre-plan for that and think about these things because they are quite likely to experience two, three, four crashes within their lifetime. And it’s quite unfortunate if it just happens to be even two, three years out before your retirement.

[49:26] David Henderson: Yeah. Same as when you’re in some sense it’s same as when you’re saving. So a bit of diversification. Make sure you’re not all in like one stock, you’re not 100% in Lloyds back in the day, I think we mentioned. Yeah. Make sure you’re not in one in one stock. So diversification. Pay attention. Um, something called lifestyling that changes your profile as you hit as you come towards retirement, retirement. If you are in lifestyling, make sure you understand what that means for you and what any impact in uh in the markets or in change to the rules could have on your pension pot. Um, yeah, so pay attention to where you’re invested, um, gradually de-risk as you approach retirement. Um, that might just be putting more into cash, but gradually de-risk as you approach retirement to make sure you’re not gonna be hit by any market crashes and understand, you know, what’s your what’s your risk appetite, what’s I mean, the market might crash or you might see a dip in the market, but if you’re not, if you’re in drawdown, you’re not gonna be touching it for 10 years because it’s just your your pot on the side and you’ve got DB pension, you’ve got your state pension, then that’s it’s kind of okay. Yeah, but yeah, just be aware of where it’s invested.

[50:31] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, and yeah, and I think uh Andrew made the point which I thought was really interesting, it’s like you know, everybody puts the 8% or 10% in their their compound interest calculator, but they don’t factor in loss. Yeah, and although those big moments happening, the the COVID, the 2000s and eights, etc., there’ll be another one of these, and it’s just timing is unfortunate. I’ve heard my I mean my dad’s retired now, but I’ve had him on the phone to me saying, and he’s Scottish, so he’s like super on spreadsheets of money and every little penny said saying, I’ve just put it all in cash, the market’s crashed, I need to move everything, I’ve I lost too much last time. But he’s aware of what’s happening, so that’s a good thing. So he’s he’s uh he understands what’s going on and the implications of any drops, etc., and and making sure he’s got a nice balance there. Yeah. But I think if you’re moving into more defensive plays, cash and bonds, etc., then you’re largely unaffected when these things happen. Yeah, largely, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s such a good point. Now, um, we I’d love to sort of see hear your thoughts on the recent Rachel Reeves announcement of sort of the pension unlock is what’s been sort of banded around. Um I found it really interesting because of the way it was presented as this kind of like great thing for the UK, but actually when I sort of dug a little bit deeper into it, I feel like it only is gonna really help the biggest businesses in this country.

[51:51] David Henderson: Whoa, how skeptical. You know what I’m trying to get at, David. Yeah. I just I think I’d love to hear you you’re in this at 247365. Like what what do you what do you think about all of the recent penals and unlock speech? So what they’re trying to do is trying to create consolidation in the market. So there’s too many different pension schemes out there. Um and they think that by creating more consolidation, it’ll create more efficiencies, and thereby that will give the schemes more um flexibility to invest in UK infrastructure, startups, etc. So it will give the economy a boost. That in itself is a good thing. Yeah, and you know, there are too probably too many schemes out there, and each scheme has people working through it, and everyone’s taking their cut along the way. So definitely there’s some efficiencies to be made there. Um, they’ve come out and said in terms of the master trust world, you’re gonna have to have 25 billion as your starting point to be to be a player in this game. I think there’s only three companies at the moment that have hit that. I think it’s Nest, um People’s Partnership. So People’s Partnership, I think, are not-for-profit or similar. Nest is government-backed, and L&G, I think, came out recently and said we’ve hit the 30 billion. Everyone else is sort of looking around saying, right, how do we get to that figure? And I think by the time it happens, there will be more of the more of these schemes that hit that 25 billion. But you have to sort of think, well, what does that do for competition? You’re basically closing off the market to anyone else, which is what they’ve seen in Australia. There’s a handful of providers there, and in some ways that can be good. And if it does create the right outcome of investing in UK infrastructure, then that gives people a better feeling about their quality of life. They see things around them improving. But there’s no mandate to say you have to do this, and there’s kind of balancing act there where the government’s trying to push people, push these schemes to say, we want you to invest here, but we’re not going to mandate you to do it because actually, if it goes wrong, we don’t want to be on the hook for it.

[53:58] David Henderson: Yeah. So there’s a bit of a bit of a few moving parts going on there. And it’s just been a consultation around this that’s just finished last week, I think it was. So there’s some time for the government to reflect on the feedback that they’ve had from you know, from all the different bodies involved and to come up with some recommendations or ways forward, I think sort of March, April time. Yeah, it’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because it’s like when you look at the like UK small cap, big cap businesses, like those inflows, they ain’t going to see much of that because of the way these things are weighted. And they’re going to move much more into the you know, FTSE 100 companies, which are multinational corporations and themselves. And it’s like, that is that going to be beneficial to them? I I beg to differ. But I think that I think the the the bigger well, a bigger risk or a big risk is this thing about competition that’s just closing off competition in the market. And pensions actually it needs that competition. We talked about dashboards, we talked about open banking, open data, we’re talking about AI. If you just have five or six super schemes, are they really going to do that? Is the customer service going to improve? Or are they just going to say, you know, tough work, co shop, that’s it, race to the bottom. What’s it going to be? I don’t, I personally don’t think it’s going to help improve the service that the man or woman on the street gets. No, and I think it’s always good to have competition and challenges in there.

[55:14] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And it’s also where they’re they’re investing that money is difficult because like it’s you look at the sort of system at the moment, and people are like, well, why am I investing in the UK? Yeah when it’s been giving me four or five percent and the SP’s kicking out eight, nine, ten percent. Yeah. Like, where’s that money going? That money’s leaving our shores and going abroad. And so I just feel like there needs to be a bit more of a of a sort of thought process behind that so that there is more competition, but also more investment into the UK, which isn’t going to help the economy, help these businesses grow. Yeah, and depending who you speak to, some people will say this isn’t for the government to sort, this is for the markets to sort, is for the markets to sort so that encourages investment in the UK. Stay out of it. It’s not for pensions to sort. And I guess some of those um sort of schemes will be thinking, hang on, if they will have that worry if we’re putting any of this into UK infrastructure, and like you say, the performance isn’t what they’re getting now. Who’s it going to come? Shareholders, profits, etc. And yeah, it’s what the drive is. There’s a lot to be considered. The intentions are good, but there’s a lot of things to be considered around the edges.

[56:14] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, I I I wanted to hear your opinion on that having spent uh a long time in their thing. But I’ve really enjoyed this, it’s been a lot of fun. Yeah, and um yeah, I feel like this is like a proper masterclass on pensions. Um, but in terms of people getting involved with Penny, how what’s that process look like for them at the moment? Easiest way, download the app, uh pennypension.com. Go on, download the app, um, pop in your details. If you’ve got any lost pensions, then hopefully we’ll find them for you. Um, we’ll give you the information, we’ll send you a ping, your phone ping, you might be out in the pub and you’ll get a little ping saying we found 20 grand for you. I’ll get another drink. Um, but yeah, download the app, have a look, see what we can find. And if you want to transfer it across, you can. Um to charge a fee for that service. Yes, we charge an annual management charge as you would have with your existing provider, so no different there. Um and we will manage the scheme for you. But that’s amazing. Download the app, see what we can find.

[57:06] Sammie Ellard-King: And what’s that process take in terms of length of time for you to on average to find these these pensions for the we can find them. So if you downloaded the app now and you had lost pension, we could find them by the time we’d finish this sentence. But in terms of transferring them, that depends on the seating scheme. So all different pension providers will have different turnaround times. So four four to six weeks, typically from the point that you say, Hey, I want to transfer. We then contact them electronically, get all the information sent across and get the transfer completed for you. So we could have found your pensions while we had this chat. It’s because of your technology on the back end that’s supporting that, right? That’s allowing you to go out and find these things. Is that the same technology which will power these kind of dashboards as well? Similar similar premise in terms of what you’re looking for, matching data. So, you know, matching uh your name, you know, how close to your name it is, national insurance number, date of birth, address, previous employer.

[57:56] Sammie Ellard-King: And will Penny then reach out to that provider on your behalf with your permission, of course, and then consolidate that into say where they were. Do they have to go with Penny or can they No, don’t have to go with Penny. So if we found a pension for you, we would send a letter electronically, it’s called a letter of authority across to the seating scheme. So where your pension is at the moment, and say, hey, give us permission to find out information about Sammie’s scheme. And we’d say, right, we want to make sure there’s no penalties for transferring, no exit penalties that Sammie’s not losing any benefits uh that are written into the scheme. Um, if none of those apply, then we want to transfer it across. And if you want to cancel the transfer, you can cancel it anytime. So it’s really simple. Interesting. Yeah, but we make sure you’re not losing any benefit, any guaranteed benefits for transferring. Some old schemes will have things like protect your tax-free cash or exit penalties written into them. And the worst thing to do is transfer without realising that.

[58:43] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s one of the things that like people don’t see, and it’s like it comes up so much. But I, you know, I did this, I encourage everybody to go and do this. I did this, got things under my control, moved it to where I wanted to move it to, um, and now it’s moving in the right direction. I’m aware of where it is, it’s going where I want it to go. I actually just keep it super, super simple. Yeah um, and I find that that’s the best way of my pension. Um, but the interesting thing is, is if you want to, and you’re in your 30s, you can invest in it like you can with an ISA. You know, you can buy your apples and your Tesla’s and your Microsoft’s, etc. And then uh it doesn’t have to be these like well, so you said before about people not knowing where their pension’s invested. I think 40% of people don’t understand or don’t know that their pension is invested. 40% invested at all, yeah. But you can, like you say, you can treat it like your ISA. So if you want to invest in Apple stocks, you can do that. So I think things like that as well make it much more relevant and for particularly for younger people as well. If you can see Apple or or you know, some of your tech stocks that you can invest in, it makes it more interesting for you. Yeah, yeah. Please stay away from crypto venture design, like uh it’s not how any other. Well, there is a scheme that’s invested, uh it that was an announcement, but they haven’t said who the scheme is, which kind of makes you know you’ve dubious.

[59:57] Sammie Ellard-King: But even so even so that maybe like if there’s a fund or an ETF on it, it may be quite attractive to young people, which then again engages that conversation. So it does, and you could argue it’s part of a diversified portfolio. Absolutely. So there is an argument or a discussion to be had there, but yeah, there’s not too much in that market at the moment. Yeah, I think you know, Mr. Big Donald Trump will be sort of pushing that on the US. And yeah, it’d be interesting to see what happens over here and and how that that sort of it becomes into our infrastructure because we get that a lot. Like, can we can we do it in a pension? Can we do it in an ISA? Yeah, and the answer is not really right now, unless you’re buying companies which actually own crypto as part of their own portfolio. So yeah, it’s very interesting conversation. But David, I’ve loved this. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me. And uh yeah, I look forward to getting you back when there’s some big changes probably in the near future. That’s probably about three months then. Honestly, we loved it. Thank you very much. Yes, I mean, thanks. Wow, what an episode that was with David Henderson, and it absolutely blew my mind at 3.3 million people. So the entire size of Wales have lost pensions right now. Honestly, if that’s one thing you take from this conversation today, go out and check where your pensions are. Get that money under your control. And we’ll see you guys next week. And please make sure you’re liked and subscribed, and we’ll catch you guys on the next one.