The beginning of the end for pension exit fees?

You may have seen our previous articles on how pension exit fees are due to be capped at 1% of the pension value as of April this year. Well, Scottish Widows have gone one step further, and taken this opportunity to scrap pension exit fees altogether for their personal pension policies!

They are certainly leading the market with this decision, and they intend to introduce this measure before the end of March when the new rules take effect. David Lascelles, retirement expert at Scottish Widows, said:

It’s only fair that people who have saved responsibly and diligently are allowed to access or move their funds without being charged to do so; that’s why we’ve gone one step further than the requirements and removed them altogether. This means our customers can make full use of pension freedoms, if they wish to do so, and not feel restricted in any way.

Hopefully this will inspire other pension providers to follow suit and pension exit fees will be abolished entirely. Who knows? But if you have a Scottish Widows pension policy that you were holding off accessing or transferring, perhaps now that the deterrent has been removed it is time to revisit this and see if your pension would be better off somewhere else.

We have never charged penalties or exit penalties, and so it is good to see the rest of the world catching up with us.