Providers must ensure that the Pension Wise logo and branding does not sit alongside their own scheme logo as this may undermine Pension Wise’s independence, the Treasury has said, as it unveiled its guidelines for signposting customers to the guidance service.
Pension Wise is set to offer free and impartial guidance to people on the new pension freedoms which come into effect from 6 April.
Today (25 February), the Treasury, the Association of British Insurers and the National Association of Pension Funds unveiled a framework document aimed at providers signposting its customers to the new guidance service at an ABI conference.
The document warns that it must be apparent that Pension Wise is free, impartial and “entirely independent” from any service or information offered by the provider or scheme.
“Therefore there must be clear separation of Pension Wise and HM government branding from that of any provider or scheme,” it stated. “To that effect, the Pension Wise logo should not sit alongside or immediately under a provider’s scheme logo.”
Both the ABI and the NAPF are distributing the document to providers.
Speaking at the conference, Alison Cottrell, director of financial services group at the Treasury, told delegates: “We would really like your help on a couple of things. One, working with the ABI - and we are very grateful to the ABI and some of the firms for all their help here - we’ve developed some standardised signposting for firms to use.
“We would like you to use it, we would like you to give us feedback, we would like to talk with you about this. One of the things that has come over very clearly in the testing and piloting that we’ve been doing is the need for understandable and standardised language.
She added: “We need to think what language works and we need the expertise of all of you who are working with customers to help us get the right terminology to make sure they have as clear help as possible.”
The document contains guidelines on signposting letters, using Pension Wise branding and how these should be laid out. It also provides an alternative letter template and a number of important considerations for providers to take onboard.
However, a recent survey by retirement specialist Portal Financial revealed that less than 25 per cent of people plan using the guidance service.
ruth.gillbe@ft.com
