Forthplus Pensions, which also has an office in Dubai, and international pension provider Momentum Pensions, are now offering their Sipp products on the Momentum Wealth’s platform’s personal portfolio account and the capital redemption bond version of its international portfolio bond.
Provisca marketing director Bryan Low, who is responsible for distribution of the Momentum Wealth international platform to advisers, said they have already done a soft launch of the offerings in Dubai and the plan is extend to a range of markets globally in due course.
“Both Forthplus Pensions and Momentum Pensions are leading pension companies in the international market with strong brands and a focus on service excellence backed up by state of the art technology.”
He added that both companies also have “deep experience of dealing with expatriate customers from around the world, an important factor for advisers looking at pension transfers for their expat clients”.
Shift to Sipps
Low also said most advisers believe the introduction of HM Revenue & Custom’s 25% overseas transfer charge earlier this year has effectively killed off the Qrops market, shifting them over to Sipps for UK pension transfers.
He pointed to data from the Pensions Regulator and HMRC which showed that there were 9,700 transfers of UK pensions to Qrops in the year to April 2017 (valued at £1.22bn), and 80,000 transfers out of UK defined benefit schemes into Sipps and other defined contribution schemes over the same period.
However, according to Provisca’s research, transfers to Sipps by expat investors only accounted for less than 5% of this number as advisers were instead focusing on Qrops.
