Computershare Investor Services has harmonised its pensions provision after acquiring HBOS Employee Equity Solutions (EES).
The firm has integrated staff from the employee share plan administrator’s legacy defined benefit and defined contribution (DC) schemes into its group personal pension (GPP) plan. Of EES’s 397 staff, 371 have chosen to join their new employer’s GPP, which is provided by Aviva. This is up on the 329 employees who were previously enrolled in EES’s legacy schemes. Employee contribution levels to the GPP, which can be made via salary sacrifice, start at 7%. The employer matches employee contributions up to 10%.
Nick Oldfield, chief financial officer for Computershare in Europe, said: “We got a 93% take-up, so we are really pleased. Of that, 69% are better off, receiving enhanced contributions as a result of the new arrangement.”
The company attributes the increase in pension take-up to a communications campaign that began in February and was carried out in conjunction with Thomsons Online Benefits. Roadshows were held at the firm’s sites in Halifax, Purley and Jersey.
Computershare Investor Services has also rolled out its flexible benefits scheme to former EES staff. “It is always difficult when you acquire businesses from banks which, historically, have a tendency to be very strong in the benefits they provide, for example discounts on mortgages, which we cannot do because we are not a bank,” said Oldfield. “What we were able to do was roll out other benefits that staff did not have.”