5th March 2015

FundsNetwork: Are you ready for 6th April?

FundsNetwork^TM have been working hard behind the scenes to make sure they are ready to provide a fully operational service for you and your clients wishing to take advantage of the new pension freedoms from April. From flexibly accessing pension savings to full support for the new death benefit rules – they’ve got it all covered.

As of 6th April, they will have made all the necessary changes to support you and your clients to access the new pension freedoms.

The FundsNetwork Pension will specifically be able to support the following:

• Access to Flexi-access drawdown – all new drawdown accounts will be flexi-access accounts with no limits on the level of withdrawals.
• Access to Uncrystallised Funds Pensions Lump Sums (UFPLS) – the product will be able to cater for UFPLS withdrawals both in terms of illustrating and processing these types of payment.
• Capped drawdown – they will continue to support capped drawdown for existing customers’ accounts in place before 6th April 2015. This includes the ability to designate further funds into the existing capped drawdown account and accept existing capped drawdown transfers from other schemes.
• Death benefit changes – death benefits can be paid out as a cash lump sum or as income through a beneficiary drawdown account. Pre-75 death cases will pay benefits free of tax and post-75 cases will pay income benefits net of the beneficiaries’ marginal rate of tax.
• New limits on pension contributions – the annual allowance will reduce from £40,000 to £10,000 for members who have accessed their pensions flexibly (UFPLS or income from flexi-access drawdown).
• Updated support material – they are changing all their support material for you and your clients as well as application forms to take advantage of the new options.

When FundsNetwork launched their pension it was built to support Flexible drawdown, therefore if you have clients who would like to take advantage of the rules as soon as they kick in, you don’t have to wait for 6th April to set up a new account. Product minimums may apply.

Pensions