Churchouse site offers bespoke pension advice

Keith Churchouse, director of the Guildford-based IFA, said the site, planmypension.co.uk, would differentiate itself from other pensions websites by being more than execution-only.

Mr Churchouse said: "It is going to be fully interactive and you will be able to input details, tell people what it is that you want to receive and get a bespoke report.

"Then you will be able to implement the recommendations made. We have been working on this type of system for four to five years."

Mr Churchouse said once the site was up and running in early October he would look to expand on its offering.

He said: "We are only a small organisation. We will see how demand goes and then implement changes accordingly. We have started to advertise for some staff, and that is partly on the back of this."

Simon West, managing director of Norwich-based Hulbert West, was skeptical of how well a website could reflect the complexity of client needs.

He said: "The problem with internet sites is that pensions is a personalised business. If you sit in front of a client, you pick up a lot of information. There are hard and soft facts. Hard facts are things like name, address, age at which they plan to retire, and soft things are things that are harder to stick down on the form.

"When you have things like comparing car or house insurance, that is different because the are nice, neat and tidy. There are few variables. When it comes to pensions, they are investments and there are a lot of ways of approaching them."