McCarthy and Stone has launched a corporate wrap as its new workplace pensions and savings scheme.
Hargreaves Lansdown, the provider of the wrap, has conducted a series of presentations and one-to-one meetings with the builder’s staff. Three-quarters of the members of the firm’s group personal pension (GPP) arrangement have switched to a new self-invested personal pension (Sipp) through the wrap and 13 have elected to open an individual savings account (Isa) as well.
Pensions take up has increased by 20% and many more staff have increased their personal contributions.
The default fund for the Sipp members is the Schroder Managed Balanced fund although members may choose from among 2,500 other funds through the corporate wrap platform. Employees also benefit from investment guidance and financial planning tools.
Paula Jordan, HR director at McCarthy and Stone, said: “We selected the Hargreaves Lansdown corporate wrap because it is a simple and transparent scheme which we hope will help our employees to manage their savings and plan for their retirement, even if that event is still a long way off for them.
“The presentations and one-to-ones really helped our employees to understand the value and importance of a good pension and to understand that it is never too soon to plan for your retirement.”
Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, added:“We are likely to see very strong demand for workplace wrap accounts this year thanks to simplified pension contribution limits from 6 April and the looming pressure of auto-enrolment.
“The defined contribution (DC) pension market will polarise towards either the national employment savings trust (Nest) for low-cost simple solutions, or wrap accounts for organisations that want a more sophisticated savings scheme for their employees.”
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