How does the Plan work?
While you’re working for the bank, you build up a pot of money in your pension account made up of contributions from your ValueAccount. These contributions are invested with the aim of increasing your pension pot over time.  

Who should I contact if I’ve got a question about the Plan?
Please email or call the Plan administrator, Legal & General.

Who runs the Plan?

The Plan is managed by a Trustee board made up of six trustee directors. Their role is to act in the best interests of the Plan’s members. 

How do I know how much my pension account is worth?
You can find your account balance by logging in via Manage Your Account. 

Can I transfer in my savings from a former employer’s pension?
Yes, you can transfer money in from another pension. To find out more, please get in touch. Please note that the Plan is a defined contribution (DC) pension arrangement, and if you have a defined benefit (DB) pension (also called a final salary pension) that you want to transfer, you should seek impartial financial advice before proceeding. 

Can I opt out of the Plan?
Yes, you can opt out of the Plan, but you’ll be missing out on building up tax-efficient benefits for your retirement. Before opting out, you should think carefully about your future retirement income. If you decide to opt out, you can do so by logging in via Manage Your Account. 

How can I make a complaint?

If you’ve got a complaint, please get in touch with Legal & General in the first instance. If your issue can’t be resolved by L&G, there’s a formal procedure to resolve complaints, called the Internal Disputes Resolution Procedure.

What is a pension?
A pension is a tax-efficient way of saving money that you can use to live on when you’re no longer working. In a workplace pension, like the Plan, your employer contributes and so can you. 

What are the different types of pension?
There are lots of different types of pension arrangements. Workplace pension schemes are set up by employers to help their employees save for retirement. Both you and your employer pay into this type of pension. With workplace pensions, you can get defined contribution (DC) schemes and defined benefit (DB) schemes. The Plan is a DC pension arrangement. 

You can also join a personal pension, where you pay into the pension, but your employer doesn’t. 

Why should I be in the Plan?
All employees are enrolled into the Plan when you join the bank, and there are lots of good reasons to be in the Plan. Firstly, the bank helps you save for retirement by providing your ValueAccount. Secondly, the government also wants to help people save for the future, so you don’t pay tax on your pension contributions. In addition, the bank sets everything up for you, so you don’t have to think about setting up direct debits or any of the other hassles you might have in taking out a personal pension. 

Will I get a State pension?
Your entitlement to a State pension depends on how many qualifying years of National Insurance (NI) contributions you’ve got. To receive any State pension at all, you must have a minimum of 10 qualifying years. To get the full State pension, you need 35 qualifying years. If you have between 10 and 35 years of NI contributions, you’ll get a proportionate amount of State pension. You can check how much you’re entitled to on the government website to check your State pension. 

What is automatic enrolment?
Employers are legally required to automatically enrol eligible members into a workplace pension. Once enrolled, you have the option to leave by opting out. If you opt out of the Plan, we’ll have to automatically re-enrol you every three years or when you reach a certain age or salary level. 

Where can I find out more about pensions?
The government has a free financial guidance service called MoneyHelper which has lots of useful information about pensions and finance.

How much does the Plan cost?
You’re automatically enrolled to pay contributions of 8% of your ValueAccount when you join the Plan, but you can change your contributions to suit you. Remember, your contributions are eligible for tax and National Insurance relief, so each £1 you save costs less than 68p (depending on your tax rate).

What happens to my contributions?
The money you pay in is added to your personal pension account administered by Legal & General and invested. 

What is salary sacrifice?
It’s a way of paying your pension contributions, which saves you money by making National Insurance savings.  

What is the annual allowance?
The government places a limit on the tax-free amount of money that can be saved into a pension each year. This is currently £60,000 a year. If you want to, you can save more than this into your pension in a year, but any contributions above this amount won’t get tax relief. 

Your annual allowance may be reduced if you earn more than £260,000 a year. It would also be reduced if you have flexibly accessed any other pension arrangements.

What is the money purchase annual allowance?
The government places a limit on the tax-free amount of money that can be saved into a pension each year. If you’ve already accessed some pension savings flexibly but you want to continue saving into another pension arrangement, your annual allowance will be £10,000. 

What is the lifetime allowance?
This was a limit that the government placed on the total value of tax-efficient pension savings you could build up over the course of your working life. However, the tax charge for the 2023/24 tax year has been removed, and the allowance will be abolished in April 2024. 

Can I change my contribution rate?
Yes, you can change your contributions at any time by logging into the NatWest Group Benefits Hub.

How much does the Plan cost?
Your contributions are invested either in one of the lifestyle investment options or in your chosen self-select funds. The value of your account can therefore go down or up at any point in time, depending on the performance of the financial markets. 

What are my investment choices?
You can use one of the lifestyle investment options or the self-select fund range. If you don’t make a choice, your money is automatically invested in the drawdown lifestyle option (the Plan’s default investment option).

Can I use a lifestyle option as well as a self-select fund?
You can use one of the lifestyle investment options or the self-select fund range. If you don’t make a choice, your money is automatically invested in the drawdown lifestyle option (the Plan’s default investment option).

Can I change my investment choices?
Yes, you can make changes to the way your account is invested at any time. Log in via Manage Your Account to review your choices and make changes. 

Isn’t investment risky?
Yes, investment involves taking risk in the expectation that this will be rewarded over the long-term period that applies to pension saving. 

You can take different levels of risk (using the different self-select funds) and using a low-risk fund would make it less likely that your pension account would go down in value. However, it also reduces the chances of investment markets helping your savings to grow, and it’s important to bear in mind the impact that inflation can have on the real long-term value of your savings. 

Like all investments, you pension account can go down in value as well as up. 

What’s lifestyling?
Lifestyling is a way of managing your investments that uses an automatic process of gradually switching your pension account from higher-risk funds into lower-risk funds as you get closer to your target retirement age. 

What’s my target retirement age?
This is the age at which you want to take your Plan savings. It can be any age from 55. Please note that the government is raising this age to 57 in April 2028. If you were born after April 1971, the earliest you can take your retirement savings will be age 57. 

Where can I get investment advice?
There’s more information about the Plan’s investment options in the Investment guide. Neither NatWest nor Legal & General can give you advice about your choices. 

If you need further information and guidance, MoneyHelper is the government’s free information website, or you can find an independent financial adviser in your area at www.vouchedfor.co.uk or at www.unbiased.co.uk

When can I retire?
You can take the money in your Plan account at any time from the age of 55 – or if you were born after April 1973, at any time from age 57. 

What are my retirement options?
When you retire, you can take up to 25% of your pension account as a tax-free cash lump sum (capped at £268,275). You can then use the rest in the way that suits you best. You can choose to buy an annuity (a pension income for life), set up a drawdown account, or take it as taxable cash. 

What’s an annuity?
An annuity is a policy that you buy from an insurance company that provides you with a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. There are many options for how an annuity can work, which affect how much it costs. For example, you could have a flat-rate annuity or one that increases each year with inflation. You can shop around for an annuity in the same way as you would for your home or car insurance. 

What’s income drawdown?
Drawdown is a flexible way to take your Plan savings. You transfer them to a new provider at retirement, where you can keep your money invested and then draw a taxable retirement income from it.

What if I leave the bank?
If you stop working for the bank, no further contributions are paid into your pension account. You can leave your benefits in the Plan until you’re ready to retire or you can transfer them to another pension arrangement, for example with your new employer. 

Can I transfer my Plan pension?
Yes, you can take the value of your account with you to a new employer’s pension scheme or another registered pension arrangement, as long as you haven’t started to take your benefits. 

Can I transfer my Plan pension overseas?
Yes, as long as you haven’t started to take your benefits, you can transfer the value of your account to another registered pension arrangement, either in the UK or overseas. 

What happens to my Plan pension if I die?
The value of your pension account at the date of your death is paid to your nominated beneficiaries as a lump sum, subject to Trustee approval.