Prudential is in the process of winding up its DC master trusts, with its members being transferred to its contract-based arrangement, citing commercial reasons for doing so.
The schemes commenced wind-up in April. Prudential obtained type 1 accreditation with TPR but took a commercial decision to wind up the schemes and move members to a GPP arrangement. This means it does not have to go through the authorisation process, which requires providers to set aside significant sums in cash reserves.
Members benefits will now be invested in Prudential’s contract-based default investment strategies, which use its Dynamic Growth funds.
Prudential’s corporate pensions business is set to be migrated to the BaNCS platform run by Diligentia, a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services.
A Prudential spokesperson says: “The Prudential Master trust schemes entered wind up in April 2019. More broadly the Prudential Corporate Pensions business is preparing for migration to a new administration platform, BaNCS run by Diligenta. The focus of the business is very much on ensuring the orderly migration and at the same time providing scheme members with a good service be it administrative or investment. The Prudential Dynamic Growth funds which are the major component of our default investment strategies have performed well against their benchmark and the market.
“Existing monies are endorsed into individual pensions, with exactly the same Ts and Cs as before, thus no member detriment. Any new contributions can potentially be put into a GPP option which employers are currently deciding on – or they can go elsewhere.”