Following the recent launch of Barclays Beyond Benefits – the UK’s first one-stop benefits offering providing the widest range of employee benefits in the market - Barclays Corporate & Employer Solutions (C&ES) today announced the launch of its Defined Contribution (DC) investment consultancy practice together with its innovative investment solution for employers and trustees of workplace pension arrangements.
The launch follows the recent appointments of Jonathan Parker who is responsible for development of the investment solution, and Investment Consultants Lydia Fearn and Jesal Mistry who focus on advising clients - both employers and trustees - on the investment strategy for their workplace pension schemes in order to meet their specific scheme objectives.
The Barclays DC investment solution forms part of the corporate pension platform launched earlier this year with Aegon and Zurich and is a key component of Barclays Beyond Benefits. It brings a fresh approach with the objective of helping DC plan sponsors, trustees and HR professionals address the main challenges they face in supporting today’s diverse work force prepare for retirement.
The solution aims to improve investment outcomes as well as creating an overall investment structure which will enable members to make a more active selection in their pension investments, if they so wish, by offering a range of alternative investment strategies and a wider guided and governed fund architecture.
The innovative Barclays approach draws on extensive research from within the Barclays’ Behavioural Finance and Quantitative Research team to create strategies better aligned with a member’s changing risk capacity throughout their working lives. Using the team’s expertise, knowledge and proprietary in-depth modelling techniques, the solution delivers an innovative approach which is able to take into account a combination of the risk capacity and risk tolerance of members who will be investing in the default strategy.
The solution, paired with the extensive knowledge of Barclays’ Investment Consultants, helps DC plan sponsors and trustees focus on what’s important to their workforce and to create an investment solution that takes account of different and changing member needs.
The key features of the solution include:
- A suite of well governed and researched default strategies with proprietary asset allocation designed by Barclays’ world-class wealth management experts who invest over £200bn in client assets
- An innovative investment approach aligned with Barclays’ behavioural finance philosophy that is able to take account of the risk capacity and tolerance of pension scheme members or workforce
- Bespoke profiling to the workforce or members using Barclays’ proprietary behavioural investment insight and risk appetite assessment derived from a database of tens of thousands of individuals
- Two layers of in-depth governance oversight within Barclays to ensure plan sponsors and trustees are fully compliant with all aspects of regulatory guidance and auto-enrolment legislation
- Wider guided and governed fund architecture for DC members who want it
Commenting on the launch, Katharine Photiou, Head of Workplace Savings at Barclays Corporate & Employer Solutions said: “Workplace pensions are witnessing unprecedented times in light of pensions auto-enrolment policy and the recent Government focus on charges. While we support the aims of lowering costs and increasing transparency, charges should be viewed as one piece of the pensions puzzle alongside quality of services and an investment solution that focuses on improving retirement outcomes.
“Today’s workforce is likely to be made up of people from different generations at different stages of their career, with different needs and priorities. They will certainly have varying levels of knowledge, interest and awareness about pensions and investments, and be more or less willing to make their own investment decisions.
“Our view is that traditional retirement planning and DC investment strategies do not do enough to take account of an individual’s needs, or adapt to changing market conditions. Uniquely, our solution provides a range of investment options designed to meet the needs of different types of member, allowing them to invest in a way they are comfortable with and which meets their expectations.
“We’re bringing the best of Barclays to workplace pensions to provide a fresh perspective on investment, with the aim of improving retirement outcomes. This is an exciting development and a major part our new workplace solution - Barclays Beyond Benefits.”
