You are testing me here!! You are correct on many of your points but there are a couple which are not 100% correct.
With regrards to QROPS, this is merely the procedure of exporting the UK Pension to another approved scheme. The QROPS itself is not an investment vehicle, however it does state that the scheme you import the pension into must be simelar.
QROPS does not dictate the terms of the payments, this is down to the scheme the pension is transferred into.
With regards to the scheme being considered adusive, unfortunatley some people have abused the scheme by 'pension busting', pulling the money out of the UK and cashing it in straight away, it is stupid and not good for anyone. This is something I would never recommend as the reason I deal with the scheme I do is that my clients must understand that it is a 5 year investment at least, and to be honest, usually more than that as the benefit to it is not cashing it in early, but the overall flexibility of the scheme.
Hope that answers everything for you and I await some more probing questions ;o)
I agree! I certainly don't see the point of having an offshore bond for a non UK resident client when he has much better options.
The main reason I use an offshore bond is from the flexibilty aspect really.
If someone has two, three or more frozen Pensions they can all be put under the same scheme and looked at as one lump sum. If you move around with work to other countries you do not need to move the scheme again as it is already in one place offshore.
What this also gives you is, in the unfortunate event you die soon after you take your pension, your wife will get her share but the rest of the pension fund will be lost. By being a bond the fund value will still be available to the estate.
All I am saying is that this is an option like all the others. If someone wants flexibility and is likely to move around, this can be good for the client.
I have just returned from a long vacation and can give you the following up on my QROPS transfer. In response to the application I sent them via my Swiss provider, Mercer (the UK fund administrator) has provided me with a number of different forms that need to be completed either by me or by the Swiss based provider. So far so good. There is a Lifetime Allowance form to confirm my benefits are not over 1.6 million GBP (not likely); a members declaration concerning my recognition of a number of criteria, the Siss provider's decalration which is essentially confirming their QROPS approved status and then a NI contributions form. I haven't been through it in detail but as a quick scan it all looks pretty straight forward.
There seems to be some dijointed threads above and I am not going to read through them all but my transfer with an approved QROPs fund (on the QROPS list) is moving ahead nicely (and I am not even close to being 50 years old.)
I will give more updates as they come it.
Hi Kevin,
I have lived in Switzerland since 1993. I am now 62 and will complete purchase of an apartment here. I would like to get my Personnel Pensions and a deferred company pension transferred under QROPS somewhere out of UK. Since I already have more than 5 years non residence, I guess I would have a lot of flexibility, depending on the rules of where ever the money is transferred to. Can you offer some help here as a Swiss based IFA.
Trevor (079 504 90 92)
I am a financial advisor working for the worlds largest offshore financial consultancy I am happy to meet up with you and we can run through a few things, just let me know if you are interested. It will take 30 minutes and I will probably be able to sort it out for you.
Many Thanks
Oliver Harris.
Certainly would like to meet up. I am in Baden.
Regards,
Trevor
Ummm.. a simple question for the experts. I have about 8,000 pounds sitting in my UK
Fidelity pension scheme . Here in Switzerland my company's pension scheme is listed on the QROPS list.
Is it worth the hassle to transfer it, especially considering the relatively small amount? I have no immediate plans to return to the UK.
Cheers
For moving your pension it is best to review your whole situation and making a plan including your objectives. These differ for each situation.
In Geneva and Zurich there is an expert on expat finance who maybe can help you out.
BR Floris
ps. I have business connections with Blackden
The phone no. listed on their site for Zurich doesn't seem to work anymore, and there is an FSA warning from 2006 about a previous occupant of that address...
Does anyone here have up-to-date info. on Blackden?
In contact with him, thanks
@SponPlague The number of Blackden in Zurich mentioned on their website is :0041 (0) 43 488 37 28 (never used that myself though)
otherwise just contact tel: 0041 22 755 0800
That surely works.
Floris
Thanks. A blackden rep. just rang me. Apparently the number of Blackden's serviced offices in Zurich changed, a few months ago, after they'd had all their stationery etc. printed, and in the confusion, they forgot to update their website , but are now addressing that as I write...
Dear All
To finish up my story on this post...I just received a letter from Mercer confirming that the proceeds of my UK pension fund have been successfully transferred to the Libre Passage account I have opened here as part of a QROPS transfer. The funds had lost some value in the past 12 months because of the market movements and I was afraid that it would have lost a lot more in the past month but it looks like they liquidated it just before the recent market mess. So I got most of out in time and will hopefully buy in to the libre passage equity funds at a low point also.
Joel Theodoloz is the broker in Geneva that helped me with all this and comes highly recommened. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) tel: +41 22 319 6000.
I was going to use this money towards a deposit on a house (probably as collateral rather than cashing it out) but am now going to wait. In the next 6 to 12 months there should be more choice at a lower price because of the economic conditions. (My next post was going to be a blog on my house buying and renovation activities but you'll just need to wait for that one. Although I did learn a lot about house buy and financing options from the Forum entries on this topic.)
I am also going to do a contribution buyback up to 20% of my base salary into my company 2nd piler (which is allowed for your first 5 years in Switzerland) which will provide me with a nice tax deduction. I may also be starting a 3rd piler account contingent on a job change that I hear about in December. (As a reminder, I need to do both of these actions with my own funds as you can't use the transferred funds. The transferred funds do not provide a tax deduction as that would break the 20% rule ie transfer vs buyback.)
I hope my journey and its successful conclusion has helped you with yours. Feel free to fire off any questions.
Hi there,
I was looking for options to move my UK pension to Switzerland and found this forum and thread. Lot of interesting information but seems that not many options to actually make the transfer
I was wondering if anyone else has managed to move their pension from the UK to Switzerland (since the last post on this thread in Nov 2008). Would be great to hear if anyone has had any luck in doing that and which way they did it.
I am in a position where I need to make the transfer ASAP or risk losing my pension pot! So, any recent experiences or comments greatly appreciated...
You could investigate if your Swiss employers pension co. operates a registered QROPS or else tranfer to a UK SIPP. check
https://www.sippcentre.co.uk/index.asp for more information, but check carefully the tranfer costs
PICTET in Geneva moved my pension for me, the key thing is that your new Swiss scheme needs to be a Qualified Registered Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS).
Have a look at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/qrops.pdf
and http://www.pictet.com/en/home/privat..._planning.html
how painful was the process? I tried to transfer my pensions from the uk a couple of years ago and the uk companies threw so many hurdles at me I gave up before I had a stroke!!
Thanks for the replies.
SponPlague - I had a look at Pictet website. Are they just for High Net Worth individuals? My pension pot is very modest. I have 3 different group pensions in the UK - in total ca 35,000 CHF. And the amount I want to move ASAP is only 10,000CHF. Would they even consider accepting me...? Did you deal directly with them or through on advisor?
I dealt initially with [
[email protected]](mailto:
[email protected]) , who had used them before to help someone else on the forum.
The only pain was the continual delays on the UK side - papers claimed to be sent but not received, and devaluation of the pot in the meantime.
I suggest you contact Joel and let us know how you get on...