Can an employee dictate who the pension provider is?

AndroidMan said:
Yep.. massive erosion on your hard earned income/investment over a long period!
It is obscene.
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So why hasn't some entrepreneurial person set up a pension company massively undercutting these obscene charges? Don't you think they'd wipe the floor with the existing companies? If the charges are obscene, then surely someone could make a big profit by charging far less obscene amounts and then they'd corner most of the Irish market. Wouldn't they?

So why has nobody seized this opportunity?
 
I dont know. Valid question.
Government restrictions?
Not sure how the Irish pension companies compare to others in the EU/UK.
 
Fortune said:
I dont know. Valid question.
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AndroidMan said:
Government restrictions?
Not sure how the Irish pension companies compare to others in the EU/UK.
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Because we're a small Island on the very edge of europe and the regulator probably is personal friends with most of the brokers and insurance company executives. It's a state supported cartel that survives due to market opacity, smoke and mirrors & hidden charges all there to screw over the Irish public.
 
Quite a statement
 
I'm not a fan of pension charges or the level of transparency in pension products. But your statement feels like more like a conspiracy theory than an objective opinion based on fact.
 
Flybytheseat said:
the regulator probably is personal friends with most of the brokers and insurance company executives.
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Have you any evidence at all to back this up?

Flybytheseat said:
It's a state supported cartel
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...or this?

Any actual evidence at all? Or is your rant based on nothing more than "I don't like paying the charges on my pension product and I wish they were cheaper. They must be a rip-off. Rip-off Ireland. If I was in Government I'd ban this sort of thing, solve the housing crisis and sort out the health service in a few months. Etc."?

If you or anyone else wanted to set up a cut-price pension company in the morning, there's nothing stopping you. No "cartel", no mafia, no secret handshakes. And if it was easy money, it would have been done. Plenty of people in this country and overseas with the brains and money to do it.

Sean Quinn had a go. Putting aside that he later broke the rules, the fact remains that Quinn Life genuinely offered lower-cost products than the competition. But their market share was very small. People didn't flock to buy them in their droves. Equitable Life offered commission-free pension products. They were also a small player in this market. What does that tell you?
 
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then, guess what, it most likely is a duck !
Equivalent UK products such as the UK version of ARFs have less than 50% of the charges in this country.

The Sean Quinn saga tells me that people are uninformed about the charges due to market opacity and smoke and mirrors - this is something that the regulator could clear up and make the market more transparent at the stroke of a pen but quack, quack... quack.

This country is run by the vested interests in the interest of the vested interests and has been since the we became a republic with the exception of the two+ years the Troika ran the place.
 
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@Dave Vanian
Lets get back to the point here please. What part of this statement do you disagree with:
"Pension companies in ireland are creamin it in profits at the expense of the irish public. Their charges are obscene and lack transparency".
 
I work in Northern Ireland. My work scheme has a particular charge, well below Irish charges as you would expect, but is also capped at £250,000.

Above £250,000, I pay additional funds charges but not scheme management fees - the theory being that it costs them no more to run a £500,000 fund than it does a £250,000 fund.

I'm not sure why no Irish provider does similar though, if they did, I suspect they'd pull in all the larger funds; which would no longer be subsidising the smaller funds of the other providers.
 
jim said:
@Dave Vanian
Lets get back to the point here please. What part of this statement do you disagree with:
"Pension companies in ireland are creamin it in profits at the expense of the irish public. Their charges are obscene and lack transparency".
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If this statement was true, there would be lots of players entering the market attempting to "cream it in profits" at the expense of the Irish public through "obscene" charges. If you were correct in this claim, why is there no evidence of this?
 
ronaldo said:
I'm not sure why no Irish provider does similar though, if they did, I suspect they'd pull in all the larger funds; which would no longer be subsidising the smaller funds of the other providers.
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It's a good point but if this system was operated, it follows that the smaller funds would be charged more. Ironically it's often those who can afford smaller contributions and accumulate smaller funds who need more work in terms of explanation and hand-holding.
 
Sure didn't Saint Quinn come along with Quinn Life and smash the cartel, but the government and Bill Gates and the Illuminati stopped him.
 
Flybytheseat said:
Equivalent UK products such as the UK version of ARFs have less than 50% of the charges in this country.
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Population of Ireland: 5 million. Population of UK: 67 million. Yet UK products charge half the Irish fee? Clearly it's the UK that are ripping people off, governed by shadowy figures and vested interests etc. God they must be creaming it over there.

Flybytheseat said:
this is something that the regulator could clear up and make the market more transparent at the stroke of a pen but quack, quack... quack.
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The Central Bank regularly invites people to give their views on regulatory matters. As luck would have it, they are currently seeking submissions on a review of the Consumer Protection Code. Will you be making a submission as to what stroke of a pen they need to clear up the market?

Flybytheseat said:
This country is run by the vested interests in the interest of the vested interests and has been since the we became a republic with the exception of the two+ years the Troika ran the place.
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As has been said earlier, this is conspiracy theory stuff that you can't back up with any actual evidence. I can just as easily say that we're governed by rock'n'roll loving aliens. It wouldn't add much to a debate.
 
A common theme in these Statler and Waldorf (esque) 'charges' posts is what's left out of the posts. So, you end up with analysis by omission and fanciful comparisons.

This is a thread about Occupational Pension Schemes - those can include a) individual AVCs (not PRSA AVCs) b) 1/2 person MT Executive Pensions c) to very large schemes with 1,000+ employees. So, don't post RAC/PRSA/PRB/ARF charges as there are plebty of non-disclosure (by poster/consumer) posts on those already.

There are no commission disclosure requirements on these schemes. There are charges disclosures and if you haven't been provided with them you can ask for them.

So, for the purposes of clarity and to focus on the tangible, can those who are claiming that their charges are too high on their occupational pension schemes please post i) the level of contribution you're making ii) the percentage the employer is making iii) the current value of your fund iv) the number of members in the scheme v) the AMC/Policy Fee/Allocation Rate (if you know there are early exit charges, include that) and vi) the number of funds available under the scheme. Also, if you think you have low charges, whether the employer is paying the administrator, separately, (say) €50,000 pa for the 'outsourcing' of that function.

If you're in a different jurisdiction (with a completely different regulatory/compliance regime) and are a member of a 'better' scheme, post ALL the actual details of the scheme as per i) to vi) above.

If you see a low-cost (exact same) occupational pension scheme product in another jurisdiction with all the charges quoted, provide a link to it so that we can see what you're talking about.

You've a better chance of someone helping you out if you include ALL the information from outset and it would really help those who read the
forum but don't contribute that much.


Gerard

www.prsa.ie
 
We got significantly lower charges on our workplace pension by shopping around and moving to a Master Trust.
I would encourage everybody to do the same.

We moved our company scheme over to the APT Master trust scheme.
Our fees are as follows
  • Annual fee of ~ 0.55% (APT get this)
  • Fee of 0% on Every contribution (i.e. 100% Allocation)
  • Monthly Policy Fee: €0
  • Monthly Pension Authority Fee €0.66 (Govt get this)
The switching process did take a long time (approx. 7 Months), but apart from the length of time it took, it was surprisingly easy.

I would recommend to anyone who is paying high fees in their company pension to suggest to their employer to consider switching.
 
Thanks @AJAM

What you haven't included is the number of members in the scheme, what the 0.55% includes (i.e. are all funds available at that price) and, probably more significantly from a transfer cost persepective, the value of the Assets Under Management that were transferred to the lower cost scheme. I'd be pretty sure APT got paid something from the pension provider for the latter and that might feed into the agreed AMC/Fee.

All of these would have had an influence on the new pricing structure so another person in a different scheme reading this might think that the 0.55% is realistic for comparison purposes.

A one/two member scheme might be realistic with a 1.25% AMC
A two/three hundred member scheme might be realistic with a 0.65% AMC
A thousand + member scheme might be realistic with a 0.15% AMC


BTW, I've avoided scheme business with the exception on the 1/2 member execution only schemes so I'm not familair with what levels of advice that accompany the schemes with large numbers.


Gerard

www.prsa.ie
 
Fees for all the funds.

They told me that everyone in the Master Trust pays the same fees (not sure if that is true or not).

We have less than 30 members and less than 4M in assets.
 

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Great clarity @AJAM , thanks for following up.

I'd say definitely everyone pays the same fees as they apply to the collective and not individual accounts.


Gerard

www.prsa.ie
 
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