For information regarding the changes to your SIPP Scheme with effect from 1 September 2023, please click the below:
Aegon SIPP Scheme Changes 2023
This webpage is a summary of your Dentsu International Ltd Retirement Savings Scheme.
ARC is the name of the retirement savings product you will have with Aegon. It gives you access to a pension plan so that you can save for your retirement and then take an income when you retire.
Your pension plan will be a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), which in practice is a standard personal pension with added flexibility and choice around the investments you can choose.
ARC brings many benefits including the ability to invest in a wide range of funds and gives access to other savings and investment products, including an Individual Savings Account (ISA). ARC’s range of products gives you options in the way you can choose to save and to make the most of your money.
You can find out more about ARC in the Key Features Document downloadable from the bottom of this page.
Contributions – the standard, minimum contributions in relation to your basic salary are as follows:
You are free to change your employee contributions (minimum 4%) at any time, whilst Dentsu’s will remain unchanged.
You can choose to invest less than the minimum 4% amount, though it is important to note that you would not qualify for the Dentsu Ltd contribution and will have had to have opted-out of the Auto-enrolment tier of the Workplace ARC Scheme. Clearly, we recommend that it is in your interests to be part of the Auto-enrolled tier of the Scheme, as you benefit significantly from your Employer contributions.
It is always worth remembering that, as with all investments there are risks associated with saving in a pension or an ISA, the value of an investment can fall as well as rise and isn’t guaranteed. You could get back less than you originally invested.
The Aegon Workplace ARC platform Account uses a uniform retirement age of 65. In practice, you are free to amend this age at any time, without cost to you.
The HMRC limits are currently that benefits can be taken at any time between ages 55 and 75. To make a change at any time in the future, this can be done online, or by emailing jeanette@pattersonmills.com.
The ARC platform scheme offers you the benefit of salary sacrifice for all pension contributions. This results in you saving additional National Insurance Contributions in relation to the amount contributed by you to the Scheme.
Additionally, using salary sacrifice, higher rate taxpayers are able to receive all their tax relief due immediately, within the pay-slip calculations. This avoids the need to reclaim such higher rate tax relief, as would otherwise be due, via a self-assessment tax return.
You are able to make your contributions outside of salary sacrifice if you prefer. If you wish to do this, please discuss with the Scheme Advisers.
The ARC platform has a Default Fund, namely the Aegon Balanced Tracker Flexible Target Factsheet.
There is also a range passive funds that follow the Patterson-Mills asset allocation model, aimed at optimising your investments over time. In addition, you also have the option to choose to use investment portfolios that are closely governed to meet environmental, social governance (ESG) parameters with a sustainable, responsible investment (SRI) approach (view these here).
Patterson-Mills is appointed by Dentsu International to provide pension investment advice for the Scheme and its whole Membership.
We recommend using our retirement target-based asset allocation models that utilise the Blackrock Index Tracker Funds for each relevant asset class to create the optimum portfolio for the time horizon to your retirement, appetite and capacity for investment risk. These are known as our Scheme Portfolios.
The analysts used to create the asset allocation models are at Royal London Asset Management and these portfolio asset mixes are monitored, updated annually for the Scheme and revised with Members at each annual review meeting.
Importantly, all our Scheme Portfolios are accessed at the lowest annual cost for the scheme as a whole, save for the ultra-low cost Default Fund (though the comparison is a mere 0.05% different!).
For all Members that choose to take up our advice on the above portfolios, the ARC platform will ensure that your portfolios are automatically updated every year, or until you instruct otherwise, whilst employed at Dentsu Ltd.
In addition, you are free to transfer to any of the 4,500 plus available funds on the platform, whether by selecting these funds yourself (or with any other Adviser), as well as taking advantage of the advisory service that Dentsu Ltd pays for in order for Patterson-Mills to offer you an appropriate investment fund mix.
You can see the full investment fund range by clicking here.
The Aegon Workplace ARC platform has a minimum 0.25% cash holding, which allows for related charges and ad-hoc dealing at any time. We expect this cash holding to be of little significance in the running of your pension investment portfolios, the amount of cash held in total usually being greater than this minimum in any event.
As part of the ARC platform procedures, in order for Patterson-Mills to maintain your pension portfolio, your personal consent in writing is needed. This permits us to carry out your instructions on your behalf, specifically in connection with obtaining values, projections and the important function of updating your risk-rated, time-targeted group pension portfolio. This will be discussed at your individual pension meeting.
When you join the pension scheme, and your first pension contribution is made to Aegon, you will be sent an email directly from Aegon which asks you to activate your account and register with them. This is really important as you then have access to your Pension. Take a look at this document to see the Activation Journey for your new Workplace ARC platform account.
Once you have received your initial invitation email, you can activate your Workplace Retiready Account, you can click this link here and follow the on-screen instructions.
Your Aegon Workplace ARC plan requires an Expression of Wishes form, which you can find by clicking here. Please print, complete, sign and email to jeanette@pattersonmills.com and we will submit this to Aegon on your behalf and acknowledge the same to you once done.
Employee Toolkit Aegon WPARC 2021
Dentsu Aegon Arc Pension Scheme Handbook – 2021
Default Fund – Aegon Balanced Tracker Flexible Target Factsheet 2021
Adviser Statement to all Employees – Dentsu WPARC – 2021
Protecting your personal information – 2020
Expression of Wishes – 2020 Aegon
