Introducing Explore Your Pension

Ever wanted to know more about where your pension pot actually is? In this post, we talk about pension transparency and how you can find out which companies your pension is invested in.

Understanding Your Pension Scheme

As you may know, every time you make a contribution into your pension, your money is being invested to help it grow. It's added to a pension fund, made up of a combination of different financial assets including fixed interest investments, property, cash, and more.

The exact makeup depends on which pension plan you choose, varying by level of risk or if you opted for sustainable or sharia investments. But that's only part of the story.

A portion of your pension fund is made up of equities (company shares), which may include a small stake in companies like Netflix, Amazon, or Apple. However, most pension providers don't let you see which companies you're invested in. To us, that didn't seem right.

At Penfold, we practice pension transparency. Our view is that it's your money, you should know where it is. So, we've partnered with Tumelo to let you explore your pension like never before with Explore Your Pension.

What Is Explore Your Pension?

Our new dashboard gives you complete visibility into your Penfold pension. Get a breakdown of your investments, see which companies you're invested in, and have a say on the issues you care about.

We also provide a ‘transparency and voting’ platform that gives savers much greater visibility of their investments, allowing you to vote at company AGMs. Here's how it works.

See Your Investments

Explore Your Pension breaks down our 6 pension plans into their underlying investments and categorises them by geography and industrial sector. You'll see where your money is, and which types of businesses make up your fund, from technology to travel. Savers can then take a closer look into each individual company in their pension. You'll see an overview of what they do, as well as a history of past behaviour and upcoming Annual General Meetings (AGMs).

Vote At AGMs

One of the benefits of buying shares in a company is that they often include voting rights. Company management will run big decisions like their use of fossil fuels or CEO pay reviews by the stakeholders first. The bigger your stake in a company, the more of a say you have in how it's run.

However, due to the nature of pension funds, investors usually don’t have the same ability to have their say, despite the fact they technically own a part of the company. Penfold fixes that.

Our partnership with Tumelo allows savers to weigh in together by collecting individual votes and sending the majority decision to the fund manager (Blackrock or HSBC). This fund manager will then share this result at the AGM. You can see how you voted, how the majority of Penfold savers voted, and the overall result at any time by logging in to your Tumelo account. Don't worry, it's completely anonymous.

Please note that the fund manager has final discretion on how they vote at AGMs.

How Can I See My Pension Breakdown?

To see your pension breakdown and vote at AGMs, you’ll need to set up a Tumelo account. Don’t worry, it’s simple.

Just click the invitation card in your Penfold dashboard online or in the app. Follow the steps to create your Tumelo account, and confirm your details to verify which pension fund you've selected.

Once you're set-up, you can take a look at the makeup of your pension fund and vote at company AGMs all by accessing it from your Penfold dashboard. Rest assured, Penfold will never share your personal data with Tumelo.