As a result the influx of new schemes has driven AUA on the Legal & General WorkSave platform to £7.9bn at the end of Q3 2013, up 49 per cent on the first 9 months of 2012, when assets stood at £5.3bn. The landmark means L&G has now enrolled more than a quarter of the 1.9m employees automatically that TPR says had been enrolled by the end of October 2013.
L&G says the numbers enrolled are higher than expected, due to lower than anticipated opt out rates, particularly among employees under the age of 30, which it says are well below original DWP assumptions.
L&G chief executive John Pollock says: “We have delivered a low cost, effective AE process and this is being well received by employers and employees alike.
“Passing our half a million milestone is a major contribution to the nation’s longer term savings’ needs as well as a significant percentage of the TPR’s registration data for numbers auto enrolled to date.
“To have delivered such large scale in what is a relatively short time in the pension world reflects the robustness of our WorkSave platform.
“Clients completing AE already range from among the largest employers to companies with around 250 eligible staff members.
“We will be forging ahead with auto enrolment for SMEs over the coming months as we prepare for the next phase of staging in 2014.”
