Almost 3 months since contributions applied to funds.

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PaddyW

Registered User
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Hi all,

I have an occupational pension with APT, through Unio. I noticed that they last applied contributions on 31/12/23.

I believe they have up to 6 weeks to apply contributions, but 3 months seems excessive. Is there anyone I can complain to this about? My company have sent an enquiry on my behalf, but yet to hear anything back, as it's only been 2 days since it was sent.

Thanks in advance.
 
There are two steps (separate transactions) here.
  1. Your employer deducts the contribution and remits it to the trustees/pension provider.
  2. The pension provider applies the contribution (invests it in your chosen fund/s)
The first of these is strictly regulate by the Pensions (Amendment) Act, 2002 as follows:
  • An employer who deducts any sum from the wages or salary of an employee for remittance to the trustees of a scheme or to another person on their behalf, shall remit every such sum to the trustees or that other person on their behalf, as the case may be, within 21 days following the end of the month in which the deduction was made.
I am not sure if the second is regulated (you could check with the Pensions Board), however in my experience while the pension companies can be pretty slack about applying the funds, they generally do apply them retrospectively, i.e. you get credit from the the date on which the company received the money, even if their slack administration, poor procedures and weak systems mean that this isn't done for a considerable period.

The important thing for you to check is the date on which the contribution is credited to your account on the statement you receive, not the date on which an inefficient insurance company got around to doing it.
 
Freelance said:
however in my experience while the pension companies can be pretty slack about applying the funds, they generally do apply them retrospectively, i.e. you get credit from the the date on which the company received the money, even if their slack administration, poor procedures and weak systems mean that this isn't done for a considerable period.
Click to expand...

My worry level rises when I see that the pension scheme is with APT via Unio. These are not the big name pension companies like New Ireland or Irish Life who have the resources to backdate investments when their service is slow. In a rising market, backdating investments is very costly. So with a smaller pension provider, I'd be watching like a hawk to make sure it happened.

The scheme will have an Internal Disputes Resolution Process. Ask for a copy of it. It's basically a standard document telling you how to go about a formal complaint. Ask for a copy of it. Then follow the process to make a formal complaint about the delay.
 
APT or UNIO are brokers/advisors. They are not fund managers. So if the Employer transfers funds to APT/UNIO they have to then transfer the funds to the Investment Manager (eg Irish Life) for investment in the chosen funds. That said, a 3 months delay is somewhat worrying.
 
I had the same issue with the same provider.
They told me not to worry that the contributions were invested, it was just that the online portal wasn't updated to reflect that.
The contributions did finally show up about after 4 months.

Whether or not the contributions were actually invested over the course of those months, I have no way to know except to take their word for it.
 
Thanks for your replies, much appreciated. Will wait to hear back from them and update.
 
I have a similar problem with funding a Zurich PRSA. Made two contributions at the start of Feb to use up last years funding threshold. One was applied immediately and I had the PRSA1 within a week. The other one still hasn't been made- only response from them is a short note saying, yea, we got your money, we'll get around to it and we'll backdate it when we do... they couldn't care less.
Of course, if AIB didn't have ridiculously low limits on daily transfers using their website, I wouldn't have had this problem in the first place, but that's a whole other story :)
 
Just thought I'd update on this. Decided to write to Unio direct and it seems that our company pension is transitioning to a new system and online platform so the old one is not updating, but all our contributions are being applied.

We will be given access to the new platform shortly. The worry could have been avoided if we had been informed of it earlier!
 
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