Premier Pension Services (PPS) joint venture with Parmenion Capital Partners (Parmenion) to launch the Consolidation Small Self-Administered Pension Scheme ( SSAS) product now provides a planning tool and fund management service offering the IFA the opportunity to create new income and remove risk whilst also offering members much needed support.
“It is difficult to accurately know the total of funds held in SSASs but it will not be less than 8 billion based on recent market surveys. PPS voiced last year their concern that in the absence of the sort of FSA guidance seen on Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), the SSAS member is at a real risk of failing to have their investments adjusted to meet their attitude to risk and advisers are missing a real income opportunity,” says Nigel Manley, head of Self-Invested Pensions, PPS.
PPS feels that a consequence of this inactivity is that assets remain unchanged in a scheme for many years, which is simply not consistent with the member’s attitude to risk as they get older and approach the day when they go into income drawdown from the SSAS.
“The prime reason for this inactivity is lack of regulation, as SSASs are not covered by the Financial Services Authority as they are treated as occupational schemes. But I would challenge anybody that with the average number of SSAS members being 2 there is no real difference to the investment risk exposure of these individuals to the member of a SIPP,” adds Manley.
The Consolidation SSAS now offers advisers the opportunity to complete an online risk profile exercise with the scheme member that results in an asset allocation for that member should there be more than one scheme member, PPS will do a free share of fund calculation for schemes administered by PPS. The resulting asset allocation can be adjusted online to reflect any particular scheme dependency on property or any other asset class the member favours. Once this is done the asset allocation will be reflected in the profile established by Parmenion discretionary fund managers.
The Consolidation SSAS, which will be accessible through both the Parmenion and PPS websites and will be a portfolio option within the existing Parmenion range, of SIPP, PEP, ISA, Onshore and Offshore Bond wrappers, and will be included within Parmenion risk profiling, asset allocation, and Investment Manager’s Report applications. Unusually however, the Consolidation SSAS will now enable individual portfolios to be constructed at member level, rather than being reliant on a single scheme level investment mandate.