One Retirement is a new and innovative pension solution, using the best components of Aegon's platform technology and functionality, in a stand-alone product. It's been built specifically for a post-RDR environment and is designed to provide the increasing flexibility needed to meet the evolving needs of customers in a rapidly changing market.
Gordon Greig, Proposition Director at Aegon UK, explains:
"The pension market has changed beyond recognition in recent years and it's simply not good enough to update old products for the new world.
"This is why when we started designing One Retirement, we started from scratch. We went out and spoke to customers and advisers. We studied the current market place and we researched how it is likely to evolve in the future. The feedback we received suggested advisers and their customers wanted three things from a new retirement product. It had to be simple, reassuring and rewarding. One Retirement was specifically designed around our findings."
The focus for this latest addition to Aegon's market-leading proposition lies firmly in creating a shared experience between advisers and their clients. The leading-edge online functionality puts advisers in control, offering the simplicity and transparency needed to enhance client relationships, without draining their most valuable resource - time.
One Retirement boasts the unique ‘gating' system Aegon brought to the market with its platform proposition Aegon Retirement Choices (ARC) last year, empowering advisers to give their clients the level of access that best meets the needs of both parties.
Advisers will benefit from straight-through processing capabilities enabling them to quote, apply and manage clients accounts online, while the servicing model offers online trading, instant valuations and new contributions. Advisers will be able to manage their clients' drawdown needs easily and can even co-brand the screens with their company logo.
The ‘Report Zone' gives instant access to management information, including reports on adviser charging, distributions, and valuations - helping advisers keep track of business - while also offering clients online access to view valuations, reports and statements. This intuitive functionality and simple design will allow advisers to focus on what they do best - giving advice.
Adviser's clients will benefit from having just one account for their retirement savings and income, a faster and more convenient online experience and a huge choice of investments.
The growing desire to retire gradually rather than on a specific date has been catered for with drawdown options that give more flexibility than ever before. Whether clients want fully capped, partial, phased or flexible drawdown, it can all be managed easily online.
Gordon Greig added:
"We're confident in this new product because we've listened carefully to advisers and customers. We know they are looking for modern, flexible, transparently priced and competitive solutions - One Retirement delivers all of this. It is the best of platform, in a stand-alone product. We believe it's unique. We believe advisers and customers will love it and we also believe it sets a new standard in product design that other providers will follow.
In this post-RDR world, demonstrating the value of professional financial advice is more important than ever. We're committed to working with advisers to help them differentiate their services and deliver reassuring and rewarding outcomes for their clients. One Retirement puts advisers in control. It's as simple or as sophisticated as they need it to be to fit with their own business models and their clients' retirement objectives.
We believe One Retirement will prove to be a market leading product solution that will help transform the way advisers serve their clients."
The Changing Face of Retirement' survey carried out by Aegon in 2012 studied retirement readiness across Europe. It revealed that 70% of people acknowledge they're now responsible for saving for their own retirement. Around two thirds expect to keep working in some capacity beyond retirement age and most are hoping for an active and flexible life, which mixes work and retirement with the opportunity for travel, new experiences and activities.
One Retirement has been designed with this in mind, giving flexibility in meeting customers' retirement needs whatever life throws at them and offering easy-to-use online access fulfilling their increasing desire to take an active role in their investments and retirement planning.
Independent quotes:
Ian McKenna, Director at Financial & Technology Research Centre, said:
"This is a highly innovative product which can support both a traditional approach to advice and the changing ways in which advisers will work with their clients in the future. This is a proposition ready to meet the challenges of the next 30 years unconstrained by in the industry issues of the past."
Mark Polson, Principal at the Lang Cat consultancy, said:
"With the launch of One Retirement, Aegon now has a coherent, integrated proposition across retail platform, workplace platform and packaged products. All linked and using the same technology. This is exactly the sort of transformational change life companies need to go through in order to thrive post RDR."
