Pots with purpose
On the Smart Retire dashboard, you can put your retirement savings in up to four investment pots.
Two of the pots give a regular income – a flexible income for early retirement and a fixed income for later life. The other two are for inheritance and rainy days.
Using all the pots together can cover you throughout retirement, but you don't have to use all four of them.
You can normally take 25% as a tax-free cash when you join.
Your income pots
Two different income pots to meet your changing needs in retirement
Use this pot to take a monthly income in the early years of your retirement. We’ll show you how much you could take each month to help you plan your retirement.
Leave money invested to buy a guaranteed income from an annuity provider later in retirement. Buying an annuity later means you might get a better rate.
Your savings pots
Life is unpredictable – use these for one-off withdrawals or to leave to loved ones
Put some money aside to leave behind to loved ones or an organisation that’s important to you. We'll leave your money invested in a long-term fund.
Dip into this pot when you need to. You can withdraw money from this pot whenever you want and it’ll be in your bank account within eight working days.
Take your tax-free cash
25% of your pension pot, free from tax
The government lets you take 25% of your pension savings as a tax-free lump sum, up to a limit of £268,275 that you can receive during your lifetime across all of your pension savings – this is known as the lump sum allowance. We’ll factor your decision in when showing how much you could have in retirement – and if you apply for Smart Retire, we’ll pay it directly to your bank account.
Bringing your money into Smart Retire
When you join, you’ll bring your money from Smart Pension into Smart Retire. Doing so is simple and we'll help you through the process.
If you have other pension schemes that you want to bring into Smart Retire, you’ll need to transfer them to Smart Pension first.
Once you've joined
At the moment, you can’t add more money to your Smart Retire account once you’ve joined. You or your employer might still be able to contribute to your Smart Pension account, though. Contact us if you have questions about this.
Leaving Smart Retire
We don’t charge to transfer your Smart Retire savings to another pension scheme.
Leaving money behind when you die
When you join, tell us who you'd like to receive your savings when you die. These people or organisations are called ‘beneficiaries’. You can update this information at any time.
When you die, your scheduled payments will be cancelled. We will then pay the money to your beneficiaries at the trustees' discretion.
Illness
If you become ill, there will be no automatic change to your account but you may want to rethink the way you have your pots arranged.
Apply in three simple steps
Discover how you could combine your retirement options with Smart Retire
See how much you could get in retirement with a no-obligation illustration.
Complete our online application form.
That’s it – you can now start using Smart Retire to manage your money.
We’re here to help
Have a question about Smart Retire? Our friendly UK-based team is here to help.
Simply send us a secure message using the Contact us button at the bottom of your screen and we'll reply as soon as possible.
