Increase in Davy Pension fees (from May 1st 2024)

Dave Vanian said:
There's no bid/offer spread on any PRSA.
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Thanks Dave,

Very helpful, I didn't know all PRSAs are bid to bid.

The person I'm investigating on behalf of also has multiple pensions from former employers with Mercer, Irish Life and New Ireland.
Unfortunately they selected the default lifestyle fund so bond allocation is over 40% already.
There is definitely s bid offer spread so switching to100% equity with 200K+ in each pension would be costly.


Standard Life Synergy option G (0.65% AMC) seems the best option to transfer existing pension over 100K
Standard Life Synergy option A is better for future contributions with 100% allocation.

Has anybody used a broker to set up two PRSAs with Standard Life in that way.
 

I deal with Standard Life as a direct customer and they advised me to set up the way you outline above.I've only setup the option A pension so far for my current contributions, but now want to set up the option G to transfer one from Irish Life.

No connection to Standard other than as a happy customer, but found their direct team excellent to deal with comprehensive product knowledge and great advice about the mechanics of the process, and recommend them unless you have a reason to need a broker. Had been worried as an execution-only customer that their approach would have been 'there's the form, if you need help with it, you probably should go to a broker", but couldn't have been further from the experience I had.

Re: the bid/spread, I've noticed on my Irish Life PRB a similar note about a 5% bid/spread on their Global Index fund. Am I right to think this means that if switch from their default options to this, I'll effectively buy into it at 5% above the market price (ie take a 5% haircut on the ARF)? Seems insanely expensive, and means I'll likely just move the whole thing to Standard now, as originally planned.
 
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Switches are usually bid to bid
 
Fortune said:
Switches are usually bid to bid
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Interesting. So they could switch for the moment without cost until they transfer out.

The Annual Benefit Statement valuation used a different price to the published fund price on the same valuation date and the difference was about 5%.
That was no mention of a bid offer spread in any other documentation.

Every plan in the company pension scheme has been paid up since the company was taken over in 2011 so I thought they would be better to transfer away from the scheme anyway.
 
If you have a PRSA balance of over €100K with another provider, you can transfer it to Standard Life as a direct client and open a "product structure G" PRSA with a 100% allocation rate and an effective management charge of 65 basis points (0.90% minus a 0.25% rebate). At the same time (and also as a direct client), you can open a second "product structure A" PRSA with Standard Life and direct your future contributions into that account with a 100% allocation rate and a management charge of 90 basis points. (It is possible, but time-consuming, periodically to transfer your option A holdings to the option G PRSA to avail of the management charge; I was informed by a Standard Life consultant that there are plans afoot to simplify and rationalize their suite of product structure offerings.)
 
I haven't, but I helped a friend to transfer an existing PRSA worth over €100K from Davy to a Standard Life Synergy option G PRSA and to direct their future contributions to an option A PRSA as a direct customer. Some people might need a little hand holding, and it took Davy forever to process the application (so there's no way to avoid being out of the market for a few weeks since you have to liquidate all your holdings before Davy will send the transfer request to their back office for processing which is frustrating), but delays aside, apart from a few phone calls and emails to check on progress it was a straightforward enough exercise in form-filling (assuming one is familiar with these kinds of things).
 
I have no connection to Standard Life either, but I also found their direct client people to be excellent when recently helping several friends and family members to transfer their PRSAs from Davy on foot of their recent fee increase.
 
Investor said:
I have no connection to Standard Life either, but I also found their direct client people to be excellent when recently helping several friends and family members to transfer their PRSAs from Davy on foot of their recent fee increase.
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I'm also about to do this. Does it make any difference if I sign up myself directly or go through a broker like Ask Paul ect?.
 
Bill90. said:
I'm also about to do this. Does it make any difference if I sign up myself directly or go through a broker like Ask Paul ect?.
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It depends on the broker. Standard Life have a range of charging options on their PRSA product and different brokers offer different ones. I don't know which of their charging options they offer if someone approaches them directly. PRSAs are easy to compare on charges - there's only two possible charges: a charge per contribution, so 100% allocation means no charge per contribution. The other charge is an annual charge on the fund. If you're sure you know what you're doing and don't need professional advice, ask a broker for an execution-only transaction. Find out what the charges are. Ask Standard Life the same thing. Find out what the charges are.
 
Standard life offer both their A and G (rebate PRSA) direct (and possibly more of them). These are the two best value ones as far as I can see from the list on the pensions authority, so the only reason I can see to use a broker is if you want/need their services.

I found dealing with them direct was fine, but you need to be aware that you will get no advice whatsoever - they’ll send you what they offer and you need to tell them what you want.
 
Tea-eis said:
I found dealing with them direct was fine, but you need to be aware that you will get no advice whatsoever - they’ll send you what they offer and you need to tell them what you want.
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Tea-eis, can you advise of what fees you got by going direct?
 
ClubMan said:
Looks like 0.65% should be possible for €100k+?
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That price is for transfers only and is available through execution only intermediary.

For a single contribution of that level it's 0.70% pa.

Regular contribution 100% allocation (say €500pm) is 0.90% - 1.15%, depending where you buy.

Those AMCs are specific to Vanguard funds. You'd be adding a bit to them if you wanted a different type of (say) mixed/multi asset fund.
 
Bill90. said:
I'm also about to do this. Does it make any difference if I sign up myself directly or go through a broker like Ask Paul ect?.
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Per the comments by the other posters, if you know exactly what you want, it's cheaper to sign up as a direct client.
 
Investor said:
Per the comments by the other posters, if you know exactly what you want, it's cheaper to sign up as a direct client.
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No. If you know exactly what you want, Standard Life will sell it to you directly and keep the commission for themselves, along with their other charges. Or you can go to an execution-only broker who will set it up for you on exactly the same terms and will get paid the commission.
 
@GSheehy and @Dave Vanian: Thanks for the clarification!

I got 0.90% by going direct for a transfer of under €100K and and 0.65% for a transfer of over €100K, but if there are execution-only brokers who will do it for the same commission, then I guess that might work better for some people.

That said—and I'm probably missing something here, in which case I’d be happy to be set straight—it seems to me that if you do know exactly what you want, then an execution-only broker would be unnecessary (unless you already rely on them for other services), and if you don’t, then they’d be insufficient. Or is that not the case?
 
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