EXCLUSIVE: BT Group has used an online facility for the first time to allow staff to transfer maturing sharesave options to an individual savings account (Isa), the BT pension scheme, or to a spouse or partner.
Transfers were previously done manually, but staff can now log into their online share account, E-share, to perform transfers.
The communications company’s latest three-year sharesave plan, administered by Equiniti, matured on 1 August. The option price was 68p in 2009 and rose to £2.18 as of 1 August. The average payout for employees, including savings, was £12,200 each.
There are 20,000 employees in the sharesave plan, of whom 6,900 were potentially affected by capital gains tax (CGT). Staff could minimise their CGT liability by transferring a proportion of their shares to a spouse or into an Isa.
Francis O’Mahony, head of employee share plans and share registration at BT, said: “We emailed staff in March because we wanted them to think about their CGT allowance for the year, and their Isa allowance as well.”
Francis O’Mahony will speak about workplace savings at Employee Benefits Live 2012 on 25 September.
