1. What is this Document?
We hate hidden fees and you probably do too. That’s why we’ve written this summary of all fees and charges for the Penfold Pension to hopefully make everything crystal clear.
Although you should read this alongside the Penfold Terms and Conditions, you won’t find any other hidden fees buried elsewhere. Please do contact us with any questions.
2. Annual Fee
The only fee Penfold charges is the Annual Fee, which is calculated as a small fixed percentage of the amount you have saved up in your Penfold Pension.
This fee covers absolutely everything, even the underlying costs of managing your investments that are paid to the money managers.
The appropriate monthly proportion of the Annual Fees is deducted each month from your pension portfolio. As of 1st March 2021 we have reduced our fees by 0.35% on savings amounts over £100,000.
* As of 8th November 2019 the Basic Plan is no longer available to new users. Existing users can stay invested in these plans, or are free to transfer to the other plans at any time. We may add further options over time.
The Annual Fee is made up of two parts:
- an Administration Fee of 0.58% on your first £100,000 and 0.23% for savings in excess of £100,000 which pays for Penfold’s service (and our Partners)
- an Annual Management Charge (AMC) from the money manager. The Annual Fees for each plan shown in the above table are different because the money manager charges a different AMC for each Plan.
The Administration Fee is calculated daily based on the end of day value of your Cash and Investments, from the point that you first add cash or transfer investments to your Penfold Pension, until the day before you have no Cash or Investments left in your portfolio. The AMC is also calculated daily and deducted by the money manager directly from your Investments.
3. Benefits Withdrawal Fees
After you reach retirement age, some pension providers charge further administrative fees when you decide to take out your pension money, which are different depending on how you choose to draw the money. These are called Benefits Withdrawal Fees.
We do not currently charge any Benefits Withdrawal Fees to existing or new customers. We will however let you know if we ever intend to change this policy.
4. What’s Included
The Annual Fee includes everything from setting up your Penfold Pension with us, making any type of contribution, transferring in or moving money between Penfold Plans, drawing money after you turn 55 or even if you decide to leave us before then.
If you then decide that you want to transfer all your pension pots to one place we will transfer those into your Penfold Pension all for free too. However, there may be some rare circumstances where we are unable to offer this service to you, which we will discuss and explain at the time of the transfer request.
5. Other Costs and Charges That May Apply
Post
All documentation and communications in relation to your Penfold Pension will be provided electronically through our website. If you want us to provide you any paper documents through the post, additional postal and administrative fees may be applied. If you ask for this, we will tell you the administrative fee we charge for sending by post.
Transaction Costs
All investments include transaction costs which occur when the money manager buys and sells investments within your Plan. These include taxes such as stamp duty or levies charged by the regulatory or tax authorities. These fees are not earned by Penfold. The effect of these fees is to marginally reduce the growth of your investments. These transaction fees vary by each of the investment plans you might be invested in and continually change over time.
Over 2023, the average transaction cost for each BlackRock fund was:
- Standard 4 ( MyMap 6): 0.1% transaction cost
- Standard 3 ( MyMap 5): 0.06% transaction cost
- Standard 2 ( MyMap 4): 0.07% transaction cost
- Standard 1 ( MyMap 3): 0.04% transaction cost
- Sustainable Plan 1 ( MyMap 3 Select ESG): 0.06% transaction cost
- Sustainable Plan 3 ( MyMap 5 Select ESG): 0.11% transaction cost
- Sustainable Plan 5 ( MyMap 7 Select ESG): 0.2% transaction cost
And over the last 12 months, the transaction cost for our HSBC fund was:
- Sharia Plan (HSBC Islamic Global Equity Index Fund): 0.013% transaction cost
The money manager separately discloses these costs, and as BlackRock and HSBC are two of the largest money managers in the world they are able to keep these costs as low as possible.
Fee Reviews
The fees described in this Charges Schedule may be varied from time to time in response to inflation, regulatory changes or other good reasons. Where possible we will give you advance notice via email of any changes to these fees.
Interest on Cash in your Penfold Pension
For customers in our non-Sharia funds, interest is paid on the cash temporarily held, on your behalf, through your Penfold Pension. Our custodian, Seccl, calculates the interest due on your account each month based on the interest received from their partner bank, Lloyds.
The interest rate varies. For example, it was 3.35% between 15 August 2023 and 18 June 2024.
For interest payments made on historic cash balances (ie. prior to 24 August 2024) we will take a 0.5% administration fee to facilitate the payment. No administration fee will be taken on interest payments after this date.
The investment principles for our Sharia Fund do not permit the collection and payment of interest on temporary cash balances. We will collect the interest in relation to these accounts and donate it to a charity of our choosing.
We periodically review our policy on interest payments. If there are any changes, such as stopping interest payments or charging a future administration fee, we’ll notify you in advance.
Non Payment of Annual Fee
The Penfold Pension is designed to have your money invested promptly. This means that there is usually no cash from which to take the Annual Fee. The Annual Fee (including money manager fee) is therefore deducted from your investments directly. If we are unable to be paid our fees directly by selling down investments because there is insufficient value in the investments within your Penfold Plan, we may sell whatever investments are in the Plan to partially settle your fees and then close your account.