There is a lot of advertising budget spent on transferring pots for no reason than name awareness. This annoys those who don’t do it (Patrick Heath-Lay of People’s Pension in particular) as it preys on trust (or lack of it).

In one of its  quiet exercise of dry  humour, the FCA 2024 Financial Lives Survey observes that nearly a third of people they spoke to, couldn’t remember who looked after their retirement money. For them, questions about trust are difficult!

It doesn’t seem to make a great deal of difference how old or what sex they are, an increasing proportion of the population are getting on with bringing their pots together. The numbers expressing confusion as to whether they’ve consolidated increasing but in line with pension chaos. The drawdown may help people work out what they’ve got and what they haven’t got (any more).

Workplace to workplace pension is not something that happens because of changes in pensions, only 13% of those who said they’d moved from old to new, but 80% found a way to transfer from a previous employers to the new one. This is intriguing and suggests that pot is beginning to follow member. If it is done voluntarily, then perhaps it could be mandatory in time (as it is in New Zealand).

Interestingly, it looks that a lot more transferring is being done between workplace pensions than through ones people set up themselves. The Pension Bee and the like,  lose to the People’s Pension ,which will please Patrick.

Most of the money going to Pension Bee (and the like) looks from other DC pots (known as legacy pots for obvious reasons).

This is not suggesting people are taking decisions on any basis other than it is easy to transfer to some and easy to access money from the pension to whom pots are transferred.

Take this advert..

The above is from a consolidator called “nuts about money” who aren’t regulated but are rewarded by clicks on links that take viewers to non- workplace pensions. It suggests they are more in touch with what matters to people than pension experts may think.

The word “important” comes from the FCA’s commentary. We have learned elsewhere in this extensive report that matters such as charges and investment choices aren’t held in much regard by most people. Not many people have guarantees and safeguarded benefits so the numbers ignoring them are small but it’s indicative of what matters – getting the matter in one place to get at it with ease. This may be known as “decumulation” and transferring known as “consolidation”, but for most people – this is about management and maybe “pension management”.

People’s history of pension switch suggests they take much more interest in ridding themselves of “legacy”, nearly a quarter having done so, there is less intention to do the same from those who haven’t got a history of doing so, this suggests that there is  class of people who have confidence in this and have set off and a class of people who sit on their hands. Will this change with the pension dashboard or are most people not bothered?

The consolidators appear to be driven to consolidation by advisers who they have engaged (35%). The factors driving those who did drive changes  such as lower charges and better returns are down the list compared to a simple wish to consolidate. In short, the Value for Money Agenda does not have got as far as consumers.

We can see a different story from non-workplace pension holders whose behaviour is diligent. Think here Hargreaves Lansdowne, AJ Bell and such SIPPs and you see a behaviour that is quite different. Many are in advised pensions such as SJP and the SIPPs of platforms such as Quilter. This is where the news (and money) is. But it is a niche compared with the bigger picture in the population.