Industry veteran Paul Budgen has launched a new app to help “close the pensions-advice gap”.
The app, ‘My Time’, is powered by Seccl and designed to enable financial advisers to support clients with modest pension pots plan their retirement.
Former Nest and Smart Pension distribution head Budgen said My Time provides a new solution for those with pots of between £30,000 and £250,000.
The core proposition is a guidance-based decumulation tool, which allocates a retiree’s assets into four pots.
Typically, 50% goes into an income pot to be used for regular monthly withdrawals, 25% into a later-life pot to secure an income for life from age 80, 10% into a rainy-day fund to cover one-off expenses and 15% into a legacy fund that can be used to cover funeral and end-of-life care, with the rest passed on.
Users can move the pot allocations up or down depending on circumstance. The drawdown pot targets zero at 79 years and 11 months, at which point the later-life pot is used to buy an annuity.
Advisers will be able to sign up to use My Time using the delegated access account and refer individuals with small pots to the app to follow the guided journey, which will recommend how their assets should be allocated.
On acceptance, advisers can earn up to £500, which is paid for by the pensions advice allowance.
Budgen said My Time will “offer a genuine solution to the pension-advice gap in the intermediated market”.
He added: “By providing this option, advisers can ensure that they’re not just operating within the letter of the law but in the spirit of the Consumer Duty, giving access to guided journeys to clients for whom the cost of full advice could significantly erode their savings.
“The My Time app will be a best-in-class proposition that will offer a clear and intuitive guided journey for users, and Seccl are the perfect partner to provide flexible back-end technology to achieve this.”
Seccl chief executive David Ferguson said: “Powering forward-thinking propositions like this is exactly what we get out of bed for here at Seccl.
“We know that advisers want to help as many people as they can, but the simple fact is that those with smaller pots rarely need, nor can afford, ‘full-fat’ advice.
“We’re excited to be working with Paul and his team to bring such a brilliant new solution to the market – and to do our bit in helping more and more people to reach retirement peace of mind.”
