PensionBee - PBEE - Share Chat

Is anyone using Pension Bee ?
If so what are your thoughts ?

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I have - I used them mainly to consolidate the random pension pots I had with various employees over the years - that was super easy. Iā€™m self-employed so itā€™s great for tracking, adding more in from a company or personal side.

The app is pretty good you can see how the pot is doing (it has a similar portfolio tracker to Freetrade) and thatā€™s pretty much it :slight_smile: which I think is the best thing about it - no ott comms, it just does what it does.

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Just to clarify those Ā£50 will go to your pension acc sadly not cash to spend. Cheers

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I just signed up. Thanks.Ā£50 today is Ā£300 in 30 years time. :smile:

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Love your thinking! :slight_smile:

The Pensionbee idea is great - gather your old pensions together and simplify the investment landscape.

Though the fees may put some people off: I think Iā€™d be paying ~500/y more in fees for a tracker plan.

(ā€œYouā€™ll pay one fair annual fee between 0.50% and 0.95%, depending on the plan you choose. Weā€™ll automatically deduct a portion of your annual fee from your pension on a daily basis. If your pension pot size is larger than Ā£100,000 weā€™ll halve the fee on the portion of your savings over this amount.ā€)

Havenā€™t looked at the plans in any detail yet though.

I used it for about 18 months. Expensive, little flexibility on fund choices, and the app is extremely bare bones.

The app is very good, the service is excellent and they take the pain out of an otherwise painful process for a relatively modest fee.

However, as already states by someone else, they have limited fund choices and personally I find that you can get better fees in the market - https://www.money.co.uk/pensions.htm?track=885118&gclid=CjwKCAjwr8zoBRA0EiwANmvpYOsb7emh4DHaBzcl_5iCdv9m0_-6s-JJM7yj9FPgEsEruZsYVrQiaBoC68oQAvD_BwE

The other thing to be mindful is that they consolidate you into either their own funds, or those of other providers, largely based on an assessment around charges.

Now, charges erode your gains over time and have a big impact on how your portfolio performs, but likewise the performance of the investments has a big impact on your portfolio. They do not look at the latter.

They also have limitations, so if you have a with-profits, defined benefit or offshore pension, they wonā€™t touch those.

I feel that if you have a number of low value pots, then it makes sense to consolidate via them. But if you have higher value pots, you are not just interested in charges on your consolidated pot, but also on its actual fund performance. In that instance, you may be better using another service or IFA, although you typically pay Ā£1-1.5k for that.

The government will be launching a pensions dashboard, where you can easily trace your pensions and then consolidate them via providers. This will make the process much more transparent and easy. Alas, that dashboard is at least two years away.

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On the app you canā€™t add money. You canā€™t see the details of the underlying fund in any detail. You canā€™t change plan. Itā€™s essentially just a different way to view your balance. So perhaps we just have different ideas of what ā€œvery goodā€ is.

Pensionbee charges 0.6% for BlackRock Consensus 85. You can get the same thing even at HL for 0.53%. Fidelity is cheaper too. And if all you want is a index fund you might as well wait for Vanguardā€™s SIPP.

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If thatā€™s the case, then I wouldnā€™t classify it as ā€œvery goodā€. Itā€™s been some time since I looked at their app!

On the App Store it says though that you can make contributions via the app?

Not used the service but I think they would suit people who donā€™t want to get involved in the ins and outs.

They are mono charge though so the fund charge is not on top of a platform fee like HL or AJBell.

The tracker is run by State Street which are pretty reputable tracker people although little heard of in the UK.

I suspect thereā€™s also no trading or cash balances to mess about with either.

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Or just crack on with Cavendish/Fundsnetwork/Fidelity?

Used PensionBee for the past 6 months great customer service and nice neat app. You can add money via the app or set up a regular DD via the website. The investment plan Iā€™m on must be pretty good as Iā€™m up 9% in 6 months.

46,000 active customers now:

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To my knowledge, Pensionbee exists to consolidate old pensions into one from jobs that you have since left.

Keep existing workplace pension for current job where it is to benefit from employer contributions as they wonā€™t pay into Pensionbee.

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Yes.

No, because you leave this as it is with your workplace provider.

So all in all: you have Pensionbee with a pot of consolidated old pensions + a separate ongoing workplace pension plan with your current job.

I certainly wouldnā€™t think so, but someone else who maybe has a SIPP could answer this?

PensionBee doesnā€™t have anything to do with your current workplace pension. You consolidate old pension pots into it and, in my case, pay a lower overall fee.

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Also, my PensionBee pot has grown 15% since I joined them 16 months ago. Wish Iā€™d heard of them sooner!

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Depends on the charges and performance and if they are more advantageous than PensionBee.

Youā€™re welcome. When you move jobs, you can move that pension into PensionBee. They donā€™t take a fee for moving a pension to them, they just charge the ongoing management fee that all pension providers charge. In my case, compared to previous pension providers the charges have been lower with PensionBee.

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