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Find out what’s new, what’s not, how our new Penfold-exclusive plan will benefit you – and what you need to do to get it (spoilers: nothing!).
We’re excited to announce some big improvements to our investment range, designed to give your pension savings an extra boost over the long term.
Introducing the Penfold Plan – our new default investment plan. Exclusive to Penfold, we’ve developed our new plan with your financial future in mind and in collaboration with BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager.
In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about the Penfold Plan, its benefits, and what you need to do to get it (spoilers: nothing!)
We’re building on the success of our existing Standard and Sustainable Plans, powered by BlackRock’s MyMap investment funds, which have been a core part of our offering since 2019.
To create the Penfold Plan, we’ve taken our existing plans and added in some new investment types. We’ve done this to increase their growth potential while adding an extra layer of protection from market ups and downs.
Our new plan now invests in private markets through listed real assets.
Hold up, what are listed real assets?
Real assets are things like buildings, private companies or big infrastructure projects (like roads, dams, or green energy) which are typically only available on private investment markets (i.e can’t be invested in by the public) and so are not included in many pension plans.
Investing in real assets can provide higher growth, while also adding diversification to your pension, which means a bit more protection from the short term ups and downs.
But investing directly in real assets often means tying up your savings in ongoing projects. Waiting for roads and bridges to be built…
Listed real assets means investing in publicly traded companies that buy or hold these real assets (like building companies or contractors), rather than investing in the buildings or roads directly. This means you get the benefits of growth and diversification, without the risk of tying up your money for a long time.
The Penfold Plan also includes what are known as liquid alternatives.
Slow down! Liquid alternatives?!
Liquid alternatives are easy-to-trade investments that don’t tend to go in the same direction as the main stock markets, so provide even more protection from stock market dips as you approach retirement.
Both listed real assets and liquid alternatives are usually reserved for wealthy investors like high-net-worth individuals or large financial companies, and can be quite costly. But we're proud to be able to bring these benefits to you for no additional cost.
The Penfold Plan is designed to take the complexity out of your pension savings.
Like our existing Lifetime Plans, it automatically adjusts your risk level over your lifetime, keeping it higher early on to achieve as much growth as possible, then reducing as you get closer to retirement to protect your pot.
There are three risk levels you move through on your way to retirement. This chart shows the split of investment types through these stages:
Learn more about the different investment types, including fixed income and equities, in our pension glossary.
Like our existing Lifetime Plans, you can also select your own risk level at any time in our app.
The Penfold Plan hasn't launched yet, but the underlying building blocks of the portfolio have existed separately for several years.
So, BlackRock has provided a simulation of how the portfolio might have performed had these building blocks existed together over the last five years – which have together outperformed our Standard Lifetime over a five-year comparison period.
Take a look for yourself at how our Penfold Plan has performed ⬇️
The returns of the Penfold Plan have been higher than the Standard Plan. They have been similar to our Sustainable Lifetime Plan over 5 years, albeit with higher returns in the protection phase due to the greater diversification.
Further details on the Penfold Plan can be found in our Default Plan summary. And you can read more about how the plans compare in our deep dive comparison.
It’s important to note:
• It cannot be definitively said exactly how this plan would have performed in the past.
• The charts and tables below use simulated past performance.
• Simulations should not be taken as a guarantee of expected past or future performance, but are designed to be illustrative only.
• Past performance, actual or simulated, is also not a reliable indicator of future returns.
• All investments carry risk and your investment value can go up or down.
• Returns may increase or decrease as a result of currency fluctuations.
A full list of the assumptions made to generate the simulations is available and should be carefully considered.
"Got it! This sounds good. But what else do I get with the new plan?", you might be asking...
We’ve made some big improvements to our existing range to give you even more confidence in your pension savings. Our new Penfold Plan is:
Sounds pretty good, right? Even better, you don’t need to do anything to make the most of our improved plan...
To make sure everyone can get access to these new benefits, we’ll move all our customers to the Penfold Plan – unless you’re invested in our Sharia plan or choose to stick with your current plan.
Take a look at how this will work depending on your current plan:
Wait! What plan am I invested in?
If you want to check which plan you’re currently invested in, simply head to the “Your Plan” page in our app. If you’ve never selected a specific one, you’re likely invested in our Standard Lifetime Plan.
We’ll move your pension pot to the Penfold Plan. Depending on how far away you are from your planned retirement, we’ll automatically map your current risk level to the equivalent level in the Penfold Plan and continue to adjust your risk for you over your lifetime. No action is needed from you to make this switch.
you were here before we offered a lifetime plan! Because of this, we'll move your pension pot to the Penfold Plan.
Depending on how far away you are from your planned retirement, we’ll automatically map your current risk level to the equivalent level in the Penfold Plan and continue to adjust your risk for you over your lifetime. No action is needed from you to make this switch.
We’ll move your pension pot to an equivalent risk level in the Penfold Plan, so you can continue to choose your risk level yourself. We won't automatically map your risk level unless you ask us to. No action is needed from you to make this switch.
Here’s how each existing risk level maps to the equivalent risk level in the Penfold Plan:
We won’t move your money. Your investments will stay in the Sharia Plan. But if you want to switch over to our new Penfold Plan, you can at any time in our app.
Before switching your plan, we’ll email you. We'll give you one month to opt out of moving to our new plan and stay in your existing one.
As always, you’re free to choose a new plan whenever you like in our app.
We’re thrilled to offer the Penfold Plan at the same cost as our Standard and Sustainable ones, so there will be no increase in your overall pension fee.
For the same cost, you get access to new investment types, your savings are 100% FSCS protected, better for the planet – and you get to have a say in the future of the plan.
With our existing plans, your fee is split in two. One part goes to Penfold and the other goes to BlackRock (or HSBC, if you’re invested in our Sharia Plan).
We deduct our fee directly from your pot. This is what currently appears on your app homepage. And until now, BlackRock (or HSBC) has taken its fee from the fund itself which hasn’t been visible in the Penfold app.
We're now combining these two parts into one so you can clearly see the total cost of your pension in one place.
If you’re invested in our Penfold Plan, we’ll deduct your full pension fee directly from your pot. (Then we'll pay BlackRock its part separately.) This means the fee displayed in the app will look a bit higher – but don’t worry, it hasn’t actually increased at all!
For our other existing plans, only your Penfold fee will continue to appear in the app. And BlackRock (or HSBC for the Sharia Plan) will continue to take its fee from the fund itself.
We'll be releasing more information, including fact sheets and up-to-date performance data, when we launch the Penfold Plan.
Further details on the Penfold Plan can be found in our Default Plan summary. And you can read more about how the plans compare in our deep dive comparison.
For now, if you have any questions our team is always here to help. Feel free to reach out about the new plan at hello@getpenfold.com
Your savings will be transferred in specie – meaning they won't be disinvested. This is to avoid your money spending significant time out of the market and missing out on potential growth.
The Penfold Plan is built using many of the same building blocks as our Sustainable Plan, which has the climate goal to reduce carbon emission intensity relative to an equivalent non-sustainable investment portfolio by at least 30%.
This means that relative to our Standard Plan, it has a lower carbon footprint and higher ESG ratings, without compromising on the long term growth prospects of the plans.
All customers in our Standard and Sustainable Plans will be moved over to the Penfold Plan very soon. Anyone who opts out of this switch will remain in their existing one.
After the Penfold Plan launch, you can still choose to move to the Penfold Plan or any of our other investment options – just tap "Your Plan" on the dashboard of your app and select "Choose another strategy".
Emissions intensity is a metric which represents carbon efficiency, or how dependent economic activity is on carbon emissions.
A higher emissions intensity indicates a relatively higher exposure to transition risks associated with emissions regulations, as well as greater contribution of global greenhouse gas levels and the associated impact on warming.