Q1 2020

www.wealthandfinance-news.com 4 Wealth & Finance International - Q1 2020 OpenMoney Partners With GUIIDE To Improve Retirement Income Planning Digital financial advice service, OpenMoney, has partnered with free online pension planning tool GUIIDE to help people make the best choices over their finances in retirement. GUIIDE is a free website built by Kevin Hollister, an experienced pensions actuary. It aims to provide individuals with the tools needed to create a plan for an after tax retirement income. It will combine any defined contribution pension pots with everything else they may have to provide a retirement income, such as their state pension, final salary pensions, savings pots and any other non-pension income, to avoid running out of money during retirement. It also shows them how much they need to pay into their pension pot to generate this desired income in retirement, how to take income in a tax efficient manner, what may happen if things don’t go to plan and how this can be addressed. Once GUIIDE has created this plan for them, customers can see how much they can expect to pay in monetary terms in charges over the course of this plan, under different charging levels and compare this to OpenMoney. If they choose to, they can then seek regulated advice, without obligation, from OpenMoney on whether transferring their existing pensions pots may be in their best interests. If OpenMoney does recommend a transfer, it will also provide advice on which of its three investment portfolios is best suited to the customer’s needs. Customers transferring to or starting a new pension with OpenMoney will be charged a low annual fee for investment management which includes ongoing advice covering the duration of the plan. Anthony Morrow, CEO and co-founder of OpenMoney, said: “In creating greater choice for people at retirement, pensions freedoms also created greater responsibility for making often irreversible decisions about your pension pots. According to the latest Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) figures, nearly half of pension plans in the year to 31 March 2019 were accessed without regulated advice or guidance being taken. Those with larger pots were far more likely to seek regulated advice, with 70% of people with pension pots of £100,000 doing so, compared to 20% of those with pots of less than £10,000. “At OpenMoney we believe regulated advice should be accessible to all, regardless of how much money you have. At retirement planning is complex and by linking GUIIDE’s pension planning tools with our regulated advice, we hope to help more people take decisions that will make the most of their finances in retirement.”