Penfold has appointed a specialised team to introduce a new adviser Portal and service for business advisers, including accountants, payroll bureaus, IFAs and employee benefit consultants.
Terry Kemp, formerly of Creative Benefits and Smart Pension, and Michael Groves, formerly of Smart Pension and Cushon, join Steve Ayers, who oversaw private banking at Lloyds Banking Group before assisting with the development of Smart Pension.
Outreach to accounting and payroll bureaus will be the team’s initial area of concentration.
The platform and its supporting service are made to make managing pension plans for SMEs more efficient and straightforward. The platform will be free to use for the first 1,000 advisers who sign up.
According to Penfold, the new portal automates time-consuming procedures to enable quick, simple, and accurate payroll and pension processing, with an emphasis on maximising salary sacrifice efficiency, controlling opt-outs, deferral periods, and responding to employee questions regarding the programme. Accountants from all throughout the country contributed to the design of the platform.
The Penfold customer service staff will also provide users with a concierge service.
Penfold head of Business Development Steve Ayers says: “I am thrilled to join the Penfold team and work towards our shared goal of driving efficiency gains across the broader financial services. Financial services professionals have been frustrated at the sector’s slow adoption of tech for many years now, but we’ve listened, learnt, and built with these in mind. We’re confident that Penfold’s new portal and service will bring the developments that professionals want to see, benefitting all parties.”
Penfold co-CEO and co-founder Pete Hykin says: “We see the launch of our adviser portal as closing the loop on effective auto-enrolment implementation and management for forward-thinking workplaces. Through Penfold, business advisers, employers, and employees will all benefit from our purpose-built pension tech that pulls pensions out of the dark ages and into the modern world of work.”