The Scottish Widows Personal Pension is designed to meet both simple and sophisticated client needs. It offers a range of flexible contribution options with pre-funded tax relief and flexi-access drawdown for one-off or regular income.

Clients have access to thousands of mutual funds, exchange-traded assets, listed securities, investment trusts, and a variety of model portfolios.

Our advanced technology provides streamlined processes, connecting you to essential tools and reports for easy management of your clients’ pensions, allowing you to focus on achieving their financial goals.

Grow

Tax relief on contributions and a wide range of investment options.

Manage Income

Flexibility to manage your clients’ income including PCLS and UFPLS.

Pass on

Flexible options to pass on benefits to nominated beneficiaries.

Features and Benefits

Tax-efficient saving with prefunding of tax relief and flexible contribution options.
Manage investments easily across the entire pension with a wide range of investment choices.
Flexible income options to tailor your client’s income to their lifestyle.
Comprehensive beneficiary options to ensure death benefits pass to nominated beneficiaries.
Fully digital processes through our intuitive user interface, giving you control over your client’s pension.

Charging

Assets held in your client’s Pension will be included in the Ongoing Platform Charge, a percentage charge based on the value of the assets under administration in the client’s Account(s).
The Platform charge is tiered on a reducing scale, so the greater the value of assets under management the lower the overall percentage charge will be.
This is calculated and accrued daily and is deducted on the monthly anniversary of the date you first set up your client’s Platform Account(s). Any cash held outside a model portfolio, will not be subject to the Ongoing Platform charge.
Charges are paid from available cash in the account(s), in proportion to the overall value of the client’s Scottish Widows Platform Account(s).
The Personal Pension ongoing charge is currently £75.00 each year,with £6.25 taken monthly in arrears.
For more information on our charges, take a look at our charges guide

Family linked pricing

Our Family Linking option allows you to secure a lower Platform charge for clients who are direct family members and covers multiple generations.
The values of their Scottish Widows Platform Accounts will be added together when calculating Platform charges – resulting in valuable savings for your clients.
Family Linking is a great way to start intergenerational planning conversations with your clients.
The combined value of the Scottish Widows Platform Accounts must be £200,000 or more at the time they are linked, and all clients must be with the same adviser firm.
For more information, take a look at our family linking guide.

Proportional pension structure

All assets in the Personal Pension (shares, funds, cash, etc.) are held within a single account, with a notional split of uncrystallised vs crystallised money.
This means you can sell any of your client’s assets to fund a withdrawal, without being restricted to assets held in a specific pot. This should mean it’s easier to sell down assets and manage cash for income payments.
If the Personal Pension is partially crystallised, meaning the customer holds both crystallised and uncrystallised money, the Personal Pension value will be notionally split into two components, and we assign a value to each side of the split without assigning specific assets.
For more information visit our proportional pension page.

Managing income

Ability to crystallise pension benefits:
- Pension Commencement Lump Sum & Flexi-Access Drawdown
- Uncrystallised Funds Pension Lump Sum (UFPLS)
Income Drawdown – one-off or regular income payments.
Disinvestment strategies for regular payments (either selecting assets or proportional sell).

Making transfers simple

With the Scottish Widows Platform, all transfers can be instructed digitally.
Our integration with Origo, and use of electronic client signatures, means we can deliver efficient digital processes.
It’s easy to see the status all transfer expectations on the adviser dashboard within the Platform user interface.

Award winning service

The Scottish Widows Platform provides an innovative digital experience, supported by our customer service teams based in Dundee and Barnwood.
Our platform is designed for straight-through processing across more than 50 processes, and we also recognise the importance of human support when you need assistance.
Our service teams are available via live chat or telephone, ensuring a seamless experience for our users.
Our Platform Onboarding Consultants work closely with you to create a customised training plan for your firm and support with new releases and enhancements.