Built to make pension investing simpler
The Penfold Plan combines investment expertise from BlackRock with a pension that’s easy to understand and simple to manage.
Your money is invested in a diversified portfolio built for long-term retirement saving.
As you get closer to retirement, the plan can gradually move towards lower-risk investments. This helps reduce your exposure to market ups and downs.
Hear how the Penfold Plan works
Watch a short introduction from BlackRock on how the Penfold Plan supports long-term retirement saving.
Risk levels to suit your retirement timeline
The Penfold Plan has three investment stages. Each one is designed to balance growth potential with investment risk at different points in your journey to retirement.
Growth
This stage is designed for people more than 10 years from retirement.
Your contributions are invested in more higher-risk investments, such as shares. These can go up and down more in value, but they also have more time to recover from market falls.
Balance
As you move closer to retirement, your pension starts to shift away from shares and into more stable investments, such as bonds and government gilts.
This means your pension value should have fewer ups and downs than in the Growth stage.
Protect
This stage aims to protect your pension value as you get closer to, or reach, retirement.
Some of your pension stays invested to support growth and help protect against inflation.
Your pension, managed in the background
The Penfold Plan does the investment heavy lifting for you – it’s professionally managed, diversified across global markets, and designed to adapt as you move closer to retirement.
This kind of plan is suitable for the majority of our customers who do not want to make their own investment or fund risk decisions. It aims to take customers through to retirement, pursuing a low-cost and good-value outcome.
You can still stay in control in the Penfold app. Track performance, view contributions and get support when you need it.
See how the plan has performed
The Penfold Plan launched in February 2025. The investments used in the plan have longer track records. To show how the portfolios may have performed in past market conditions, BlackRock created simulations using historical data.
From March 2025 onwards, performance reflects real results.
It’s important to note that it cannot be definitively said exactly how this plan would have performed in the past. Simulations should not be taken as a guarantee of expected past or future performance, but are designed to be illustrative only. A full list of the assumptions made to generate the simulations is available and should be carefully considered.
Past performance, whether actual or simulated, is not a reliable guide to future performance. All investments carry risk. Your pension value can go down as well as up. Returns can also be affected by changes in currency.
Investing with the long term in mind
The Penfold Plan considers sustainability as part of its long-term investment approach.
All three BlackRock MyMap Select ESG funds used by the Penfold Plan aim to:
Invest at least 80% of their government bonds* with sovereigns with improved ESG credentials**
Achieve a carbon emission intensity score of 30% less than an appropriate comparator fund.***
These aims do not apply to the liquid alternative and listed real assets within the Penfold Plan.
Why customers trust the Penfold Plan
- 100% FSCS protection
Your pension is fully protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), no matter how much you’ve saved. If the provider Blackrock Life Funds were to fail we would seek to recover 100% of any loss suffered by you.
- Managed with BlackRock expertise
The Penfold Plan was designed with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. It brings institutional investment expertise to long-term retirement saving.
- One simple all-in fee
You'll only pay one annual fee of 0.75% for savings under £100,000 and 0.4% for any amount over £100,000. There are hidden charges or complicated pricing structures.
Penfold Plan FAQs
*The % of government bonds that each underlying MyMap fund invests in differs. For example, MyMap ESG Select 7 invests 100% in equities.
** Sovereigns with improved ESG credentials are those who have an ESG rating of BB or higher (as defined by MSCI or another third party data vendor). See here for more detail: https://www.msci.com/web/msci/esg-ratings;
*** The carbon emission intensity score aim applies to companies that are invested in that make up the 'Other CIS' part of the fund portfolio only.
