Pension & Investment Planning Analysis

WELCOME TOOUR QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER

SELECTAPENSION IS RDR FRIENDLYTo pre-empt the changes required for the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), we have enhanced our calculators with a new ‘Remuneration’ screen allowing you to use the fee based charges you have agreed with your client using RDR friendly plans or continue with the current commission based structure in the lead up to 2013.

Fees may be paid separately from the products or taken via a combination of fee types based on either the premium, the fund or a combination, by specifying either a percentage, an amount or again a combination of the two.

There is an ‘Advance Fee Styles’ option so you can replicate the fees you have agreed with your client, how the fee will be received and the timing of the payment. You also have the flexibility to specify the frequency, duration and commencement of the payments, for example, you may wish to take a fee on the regular premiums over a period of 24 months, but delay the commencement of this payment period for 12 months. The flexibility of the options allow fees to be taken from 100% of the premiums until the total fee is paid, also fees may be taken from any premium indexation.

A ‘free text’ box is available for you to give a full description of the remuneration arranged with your client (for example if the fee is to be paid by your client separately from the new product) and will appear in the report for the client.

An example of the new screen is shown below:

JULY 2012

RDR is not the first and will not be the last major change that Advisers will have to react and adapt to, our aim is to provide you with flexible, robust functionality to enhance the user journey and ease transition.

The Advanced FeeStyles button allowsyou to be more specificabout how you willreceive the fee and thetiming of the payment.

In this example the remuneration taken is as follows:

3% of the Initial Single Premiumtaken in the 1st month

25% of the 1st years regularpremiums taken monthlystarting from month 1

£100pa fund based remunerationtaken monthly starting frommonth 1 with no indexation

You may use the free text box to givea full description of the fees arrangedwith your client, for example ifyour fee is to be paid by your clientseparately from the new product.This will appear in the client report.

Regular Premium fees can be eitherLevel or Initial, Fund Based Fees canalso be used.

When selecting ‘Level’ you mayspecify the duration either by theFull Term or a certain number ofmonths.

When selecting ‘Initial’ you canchoose to use up to 100% of theregular premiums until the fee is paid. If not you have the choice of the period that the fees will be paid,the frequency and when the fees willstart to be taken.

For Fund Based Fees you may select the frequency of deductions and when they will commence. If the fund based fee is input as a monetary amount the Indexation option appears, this allows you to specify an annual increase to the remuneration, such asNAE.

For Single Premiumfees, you may select the period that the fees will be paid, the frequency and when the fees willstart to be taken.

NEW WITH PROFITS SECTORFollowing requests from our users, we have introduced a With Profits Sector which will give you the ability toeasily run your analyses including With Profits funds for New Investments across all calculators.

The Sector can be accessed via both the Fund / Sector Templates section of the Personal Settings area and on the New Investment screen.

Examples of the screens are shown below:

IN THE PERSONALSETTINGS SECTION

ON THE NEWINVESTMENT SCREEN

Select the newWith Profits Sector2

Select the newWith Profits Sector2

Input the split relating toWith Profits3

Select Other from the list of available Sectors1

Select Other from thelist of available Sectors1

Input the split relating to With Profits3

FSA CHANGES DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION TRANSFER ASSUMPTIONSWe have updated our Defined Benefit Comparison Tool to comply with the FSA’s Policy Statement (PS12/8) which has an important impact on Defined Benefit Transfer Value Analysis assumptions.

The key changes from May 2012 are:

• The mortality tables used within calculations have been changed from the ’92 Series to the ’00 Series to reflect improvements in life expectancy. There is also a requirement to blend in Continuous Mortality Improvements which are updated annually

• Annuities, and therefore Critical Yields, will be calculated on a ‘gender

equal’ basis in line with the European Court of Justice ruling • We will be adopting an index-linked annuity rate for LPI using the

same rationale as we do for RPI/CPI linked annuities • The Annuity Interest Rate will be reviewed more frequently using

a rolling 12 month average. This will be applied between standard reviews if there is a variance of 0.2% or more over the previous month’s rate

Once the FSA have come to a decision over the assumptions surrounding CPI revaluation, both in deferment and in payment, we will also apply these to the system. As yet we have no timescale as to when this decision may happen but we will monitor and keep you informed.

NEW FIXED PROTECTION STATUSFrom April 2012 as a result of changes to Lifetime Limit, Fixed Protection is an option to individuals who currently do not have Primary or Enhanced Protection but may exceed the new Lifetime Limit threshold of £1.5M.

Applications had to be made to HMRC before 6th April 2012 to have the Lifetime Allowance fixed at £1.8M rather than the standard £1.5M.

To keep Fixed Protection an individual:

1. Cannot start a new pension arrangement

2. Cannot have benefit accrual

3. Will be restricted on where and how benefits can be transferred

We have updated our Retirement Planning tool to accommodate any of your clients who have gained Fixed Protection status. Fixed Protection has been included as an option for your client in addition to the pre-existing Primary and Enhanced Protection.

Dentons SIPP

DID YOU KNOW?

NEW PROVIDERS AND PRODUCTS ADDED SINCE OUR LAST NEWSLETTERSince our last Newsletter, Selectapension continues to work with Providers to add as many Products as possible.

PRODUCTS WHICH WE ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON AND WILL BE ADDED SOON

SIPP(+ Drawdown version)

Personal Pension(+ Drawdown version)

Open Pension(+ Drawdown version)

Solo SIPP(+ Drawdown version)

Full SIPP(+ Drawdown version)

The Simply SIPP(+ Drawdown version)

Minerva SIPP(+ Drawdown version)

Retirement Choices SIPP(WRAP)

Secure Advantage Retirement Solution

SIPP

ADVERTISINGYou may have seen that we have introduced some adverts on the home page of our Website.

This is a new opportunity open to all Providers allowing them to communicate to you any new products, enhancements and offers for their existing products.

THE POPULARITY OF OUR CALCULATION TOOLSBetween April 2011 and April 2012, the total number of visits to the Selectapension website was 154,616; 24,060 were new visits.

The number of our users continues to increase with subscribers currently in excess of 3,000.

We are also providing bespoke modeller tools for high profile financial institutions.

TRAINING SESSIONSWhilst our tools are user friendly and intuitive, we offer telephone, email and Webex support and training for all of our users.

We are delighted to announce in-house training sessions on our suite of pension and investment planning tools (Money Purchase, Defined Benefit, Provider Comparison, Income Drawdown and QROPS) and the client facing reports that can be generated.

Walkthroughs of the various planning and transfer tools will show the flexibility of the system to meet the needs of your clients as well as highlighting how the advice process can be more efficient and cost effective by using Selectapension, especially in the upcoming RDR environment.

The venue is Selectapension’s offices at Vision House, Crowborough Hill, Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 2EG

Please book early onto one of the sessions listed below as limited spaces are available. If you would like to attend, please contact our Sales Department on 01892 669494 or email sales@selectapension.com

LOOK WHO’S TALKING ABOUT US…Selectapension are delighted to be featured in the trade press, please click on the links below to view themost recent articles:

Money Marketing: Selectapension adds fee calculator

Money Marketing: Selectapension launches RDR-ready pension transfer tool

Ifaonline: Pension switching; what matters most?

International Adviser: QROPS a ticking time bomb?

Ifaonline: Is a fee-based structure already the norm?

Money Marketing: Online tool reviews risk

Monday 16th July 2012 10:00 – 12:00 or 14:00 – 16:00

Thursday 13th September 2012 10:00 – 12:00 or 14:00 – 16:00

Wednesday 10th October 2012 10:00 – 12:00 or 14:00 – 16:00

INTRODUCING...ThinCats.com

Direct Lending Comes of Age

ThinCats.com set out to provide a way for experienced investors to make secured loans directly to businesses and has resulted in an average net return of 10.8% so far. Being the only peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) lending platform that offers secured loans ThinCats has already been particularly popular with SIPPs but until now P2P lending has been a new, unregulated niche market suitable for experienced and active investors.

Now FSA Regulated Fund manager Innvotec has introduced a managed fund “ThinCats Bonds” which will makesecured loans using the ThinCats lending platform and aims to return at least 8% to lenders after fees.

Because Innvotec makes the lending decisions it eliminates the need for the time and experience necessary toselect suitable opportunities and makes P2P lending available to all investors either directly or through their IFAs.

ThinCats Bonds provide easy access to a new asset class with attractive rates of fixed interest not subject tofinancial market volatility and as such it justifies consideration as part of any diversified investment portfolio.ThinCats Bonds also provide a monthly income of interest as well as monthly capital repayments so they can alsosubstitute for an annuity at a time when annuity rates are very poor.

ThinCats Bonds are also particularly suitable for Non-doms seeking to take advantage of the new tax advantagesavailable for those investing in UK businesses and they have been designed with that use in mind.

More information is available on www.thincats.com and www.innvotec.co.uk

Adviser Home – Making a Difference

There’s an interesting new business aimed at the financial adviser market – you can register on www.adviserhome.co.uk/register.

Adviser Home can help with a range of requirements from strategy to client communication, to IT and PI cover.It was created to help Financial Advisers develop their business and help Providers reach their target audiencemore effectively and efficiently.

It offers a range of services to help you run, market and develop your business including a searchable eventscalendar so you can see what’s on near you. We recently took part in a partner’s workshop run by AdviserHome and from this a really positive initiative has emerged. It’s called Making a Difference – and over 30 differentprovider companies including Selectapension say in a few lines just how they seek to make a difference in theadviser sector. Take a look at this link – www.adviserhome.co.uk/making-a-difference

CONTACT USSales: sales@selectapension.com or call 01892 669494

Technical: support@selectapension.com or call 01892 669495

www.selectapension.com