Sad to say i have been waiting for over a year for IE to add a SIPP to its product range and its all been a bit disappointing now its being unveiled with a whopping fee compared to many other SIPP providers in todays market.
As many have said… uncompetitive and far too high for smaller pension pot holders.
Shame really, and i would imagine IE have lost a potentially huge amount of custom because of this that have been waiting patiently.
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There are 2.5 main ways to charge for a SIPP. 1) Flat fee.
2) Percentage of pot size
2.5) A combination of both.
IE seem to be going for a flat fee and at £11.99 (assuming they don’t charge for transactions) that would make them cheaper than all other major ‘flat fee’ providers.
Percentage based fee structures benefit smaller pot sizes, up to a tipping point depending on the percentage charged. Apart from Vanguard the pot size won’t need to grow that much before you are paying an average of more than £11.99 (especially with those provides that have transaction charges). And remember Vanguard have a limited fund range.
So my view is IE is competitive for all but small pot sizes where Vanguard has the edge. So for IE to become the most competitive they would just need to add another tier e.g.:
a) free below £2k.
b) £5.99 p/m below £50k.
c) £11.99 p/m above £50k.
In order to avoid the step change when crossing tiers then a percentage approach would need to be adopted (e.g. with a similar approach to income tax brackets).
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Although the problem with ascending tiered pricing is that it:
- Adds complexity for consumers (albeit marginal)
- Adds implementation complexity e.g. as it’s easily gameable if IE doesn’t add protections to stop multiple SIPPs and multiple accounts per person
- It works as a disincentive to invest more
Flat pricing on a single tier avoids all of these, so perhaps that’s the calculation they’ve made.
Perhaps they can re-evaluate with a lower price for a single tier, a cap, or some other incentive mechanism for smaller pots though
Presumably the second point (gaming by multiple accounts per person) is relatively easy to address given that these are all KYC-ed products with a single provider.
Hi all,
Thanks for your patience whilst we went back to the planning room re SIPP pricing. As a bit of background, we set the £11.99 monthly fee to provide simplicity and support investors as their portfolios grew, while hoping that the £2,000 fee-free limit would provide an avenue for investors to get started.
However, we’ve heard your feedback, predominantly around the £11.99 fee being prohibitive for mid-sized SIPP portfolios, and have made the carefully considered decision to amend the pricing.
Upon launch, our SIPP fee will now be 0.15% capped at £200 a year.
This should achieve all objectives for investors of all portfolio sizes; and when combined with our already low-investing fees (commission-free for DIY, 0.25% for Managed, with ETFs from as little as 0.04%) and automated investing solution, makes for a compelling pension proposition.
Thanks again for your feedback, the pre-registration page will be updated shortly with these details.
We look forward to welcoming you all as SIPP clients in the coming weeks.
Team InvestEngine
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