Smart Pension is a pensions and retirement technology business, delivering pensions technology platforms in partnership with other financial institutions, and running a

defined contribution A defined contribution (DC) plan is a type of retirement plan in which the employer, employee or both make contributions on a regular basis. Individual accounts are set up for participants and benefits are based on the amounts credited to these a ...

master trust pension scheme setup for employers to enrol employees in a workplace pension scheme.

Operations

Smart Pension's headquarters are in Marylebone, London. They also operate in other regions including the Middle East with Zurich, and in Ireland with New Ireland Assurance, as well as strategic partnerships with Australia's Link Group, and France's Natixis IM In 2016, Smart Pension was added to the UK government's

Pensions Regulator The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is a non-departmental public body which regulates work-based pension schemes in the United Kingdom. Created under the Pensions Act 2004, the regulator replaced the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (OPRA) fro ...

’s list of Group Personal Pensions open to any employer, having met the master trust assurance framework and other required criteria.

Investment and recognition

In July 2016 L&G Investment Management announced that it was investing more than £3 million in Smart Pension.Haslett, Emma (28 July 2016)
Pensions giant L&G invests more than £3m in London auto enrolment fintech firm Smart Pension
City AM.Burn-Callander, Rebecca (4 June 2016)
Technology titans behind Secret Escapes and Zoopla plough millions into Will Wynne's Smart Pension

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

. In June 2017, the company won Overall Winner on the DL100 List and Fintech Innovation of the Year at the Digital Leaders Awards 2017.

JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the wo ...

announced an investment in the business in February 2019, taking a 'minority stake'. In November 2019 it was announced Link Group, an Australian provider of technology-enabled administration solutions, with over 7,000 employees working across 18 jurisdictions, had invested an undisclosed amount as part of a strategic partnership. Natixis IM, one of the world's largest asset management firms, announced a strategic investment in Smart in May 2020. In June 2021 it was announced that Chrysalis Investments was taking a £75 million stake in Smart as part of a £165 million Series D funding round.

Legal background

The

Pensions Act 2008 The Pensions Act 2008c 30 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The principal change brought about by the Act is that all workers will have to opt out of an occupational pension plan of their employer, rather than opt in. A second c ...

is an act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. The principal change brought about by the act is the requirement for all employees to have to opt out of a workplace pension scheme, rather than opt in. This change in law moves a significant portion of responsibility onto employers in the UK to ensure that they are providing a workplace pension scheme for all eligible employees. Employers were required to initiate automatic enrolment into their workplace according to set staging dates based on the number of employees in the company. These dates started in 2012 and will run until February 2018, and there are penalties for companies that do not comply.

ASA Rulings

In 2016 the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint that a Smart Pension

direct mail Advertising mail, also known as direct mail (by its senders), junk mail (by its recipients), mailshot or admail (North America), letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia) is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. The d ...

advertisement had ‘misleadingly suggested it was an official communication’. Those complaining challenged whether or not it was clear that the letter was an advert. The

ASA ASA as an abbreviation or initialism may refer to: Biology and medicine * Accessible surface area of a biomolecule, accessible to a solvent * Acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin * Advanced surface ablation, refractive eye surgery * Anterior spinal ar ...

agreed with the complainant and concluded that the advert "was not obviously identifiable as an ad, that it misleadingly suggested it was an official communication". The ASA went on to state that the advert suggested companies needed to contact Smart Pension in order to comply with auto enrolment legislation, despite this not being the case, as Smart Pension offer a commercial service. Another complaint was made on 25 January 2017 (also upheld) showing that Smart Pension repeated a similar act. The detail states that 'The ASA welcomed Smart Pension's willingness to make changes to the ad.'. This was tested via a similar complaint in November 2017. The ASA investigated this and, in October 2018 upheld one of three points. In looking again at this, the ASA in February 2019 stated 'This ruling replaces that published on 17 October 2018. the decision on point 3 has been reversed, making the complaint not upheld', the ASA concluding that Smart Pension was not in breach on any of the three points in the complaint.

References

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External links