This document is for you, a potential Beach customer, and is to give you an overview of the most important details of a Beach pension, to help you decide if it’s right for you.
Hopefully you'll find it easy to read and understand, and it’s here to help you make an informed decision.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is a financial services regulator, asks that Beach provide you with this document – it’s important, so please read it carefully and ensure you understand everything about our pension before opening an account.
We encourage you to keep a copy yourself, and we’ll keep a copy of it on our website (beach.org) for you to refer back to whenever you like. If there’s any questions, get in touch with our friendly team via [email protected].
If you are unsure about the risks involved with a pension, and have questions, contact our friendly team via [email protected], and check out helpful guides on pensions with MoneyHelper (a free government service).
A pension is a type of savings and investment account which allows you to save for retirement in a tax-efficient and flexible way.
You typically won’t pay tax on your contributions into your pension, you’ll get something called tax relief. With a personal pension (like Beach), the government will give you the tax back you’ve paid on your income (or will pay in future) as a 25% top up (we call this a bonus) when you add money to your Beach pension. This is to refund any tax paid on your income at 20%.
This will be automatically added to your pension pot, typically at the end of the following month.
And if you pay 40% or 45% tax on your income, you can get this extra tax back from the government, typically by claiming it back on a Self Assessment tax return at the end of the tax year (April 5th).
On top of tax relief, your pension also grows tax-free (so no tax on any increase in the value of your pension). You may pay tax when you later withdraw money, it depends on your income and the tax rules at the time.
As pensions are intended for retirement, you’ll only be able to withdraw from your pension from age 55 (57 from 2028), unless in special circumstances.
A Beach pension is for people who want to save for retirement in a straightforward, tax-efficient way. And, making decisions themselves from a single pension plan option (investment range) designed for long term investing.
You’ll need to be over the age of 18, and under 75. And be a UK tax resident.
No, we cannot offer you advice based on your personal circumstances, which includes investment, tax and any money related matters. You will need to make your own decisions. If you think you’d benefit from advice, you should speak to a suitably qualified financial advisor.
You’ll pay an annual fee to Beach of 0.75% of the value of your pension balance per year.
A minimum fee applies across the total balance of your Beach account (for instance if you have money in your easy access pot, this is included, which reduces the likelihood of this fee being applied). This is £4.99 per month.
You will either pay 0.75% or the minimum fee of £4.99 per month, not both, depending on the balance across your whole Beach account.
This covers all the costs associated with your pension, such as payments (adding money), trading (buying the investments on your behalf) and custody (holding your investments safely and securely). Plus all the admin behind the scenes.
This will be collected from your Beach account balance in monthly instalments, based on the daily value of your balance. You don’t need to make a payment from your bank account.
As an example, if you have a total Beach balance of £10,000, you’d pay 0.75% of the value across the course of a year, which is £6.25 per month (£75 per year). If instead, you had a total Beach balance of £5,000, your monthly fee would be £3.13 per month (£37.50 per year), and so you would instead pay the minimum fee of £4.99 per month.
You will also pay a fee within the investment itself, within your pension pot (called an investment fund), which is 0.23% per year of your investment value. This is a fee to the investment fund manager (not Beach), and is taken automatically from the fund itself. Although unlikely, this fee could vary slightly.
Beach (Beach Finance Ltd) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which means we’ve been reviewed against strict criteria, and approved to arrange your pension and investments, ensuring that your money is safe and secure, and we are continually reviewed.
Your pension plan is managed by BlackRock, the largest investment company in the world, with your pension held all in your name, and can only be returned to you. Nobody, not even us, can access your money within your account. Should anything happen to BlackRock themselves, or Beach (such as going out of business), your pension and money would still exist, and would be returned to you (or transferred to a new provider).
For added security, you are also protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which provides compensation up to £85,000 should any money not be returned to you. You can learn more about this on the FSCS website.
However, it’s important to understand your pension can fall in value as well as rise due to investment performance. This is part of how investments work over time and ups and downs should be expected.
For your pension, the pension plan (investment option) available to you is based on your date of birth, and therefore expected retirement age.
As a summary, this is an investment designed for long term, continual growth over time, in a risk-managed way, in order to build up a pension pot as you go through life, and to continue to grow and provide an income in retirement.
The plan also has a focus on improving the world where possible, such as fighting climate change through lower carbon emissions (alongside long term growth).
The investment manager is authorised by The Financial Conduct Authority, and will manage the investments in line with the objectives of the fund (aim to grow your retirement savings over time in a suitable, risk-managed way).
We have provided information on the relevant pension plan within the app during the sign up process (such as a factsheet and other documents and information provided by the investment manager), please ensure you review and understand these as it is your responsibility to decide if the plan is right for you. These documents will be saved within your Beach account to review at any time too.
To check the value of your pension, you can log into the Beach app at any time to get an up-to-date overview of your pension balance.
You’ll also receive an annual statement each year, which will give you a projection of your pension in the future, to help you manage your retirement savings and current savings strategy.
A number of things can alter this projection, some key factors include a change in the regular savings amount into your pension, the performance of the investments within your pension, a change in fees, inflation and interest rates.
As this is a pension just for you, only you can pay into your account. You can continue to pay into your pension until you turn 75 years old.
Yes. Each time you top up your account, it will need to be a minimum of £25.
Yes, for a pension, and with Beach, you can only add money that is eligible for tax relief.
The most you can contribute per tax year is the total of your yearly income (e.g. your salary. Technically called your ‘annual relevant UK earnings’), or £60,000, whichever is lower.
So, if you earn £40,000 per year, you can contribute £40,000 per year into your pension. If you earn £100,000, your limit is £60,000.
This figure includes tax relief, so to save £40,000 into your pension, you would only need to contribute £32,000 (25% bonus (£8,000) from the government automatically added).
This total applies as a combined total across all of your pensions, for instance, this also includes a pension from work if you have one.
If you don’t have any income, you can still save into a pension, but your limit would be £3,600 per year (which means adding £2,880 and receiving the tax relief bonus of £720).
If you earn above £260,000 per year, your annual allowance will reduce by £1 for every £2 earned above £260,000, down to a lower allowance limit of £10,000 (so if you earn above £360,000, your allowance will be £10,000).
You may be able to add more than your current year’s annual allowance if you haven’t made use of your full annual allowance for any of the previous 3 tax years, whereby you can backdate your contributions up to your annual allowance for that specific year, this is called the ‘carry forward’ rule. You must have been a member of any registered pension scheme during those years (for instance have a pension from work open).
If you’ve already withdrawn money from a pension elsewhere, your limit may be reduced to £10,000.
This is not a complete overview of the annual allowance for every circumstance. If you think your circumstances are complex, you should seek advice from a financial advisor.
These tax rules could change in the future.
You can’t currently withdraw money from your Beach pension, although we’re working on this right now.
There are special circumstances where you are able to (before the age of 55), such as if you are terminally ill.
When you are ready to withdraw from your pension (from the age of 55, but 57 in 2028), you will be able to transfer your pension to another provider who will allow you to withdraw from it.
There are several options available to withdraw money from your pension, so you’ll want to seriously consider what is best for you.
25% of your pension will be tax-free (up to a total of £268,275), and you can take this as a tax-free lump sum if you want to. How much tax you pay on the remaining portion will depend on your income and tax rules at the time.
You can withdraw from your personal pension(s) regularly (e.g. monthly), or you can use your pension pot to buy an annuity, which is a guaranteed income for a set amount of time (e.g. 20 years), or the rest of your life.
Yes, you can transfer most types of personal pensions – as long as they are a ‘defined contribution’ pension, which are pensions where you typically have a pension pot that you add money to and it builds up, which can be directly yourself, or through your job. These are common in lots of workplaces, and most pensions you set up yourself.
The alternative is a defined benefit pension, which can also be called final salary pensions, and these are where you have set benefits at retirement, such as a guaranteed income. These are more common in public sector jobs (such as the NHS or government) and older workplaces. We can’t accept these pensions as the benefits can be great, and can be worth keeping where they are.
You also can’t transfer a pension from your existing job, you’ll need to wait until you leave.
You can’t transfer your pension if you have already started taking money out of it (often called drawdown), or if it’s subject to a court order (for instance following a divorce).
Transferring a pension is straightforward – all you need to do is open your Beach account, head over to “Settings”, then “Transfer a pension from a previous job to Beach”. From there, fill in a few details such as which pension provider it’s with, and that’s it, we’ll arrange the transfer and your pension will arrive within your Beach pension pot after a few weeks (it could be longer depending on the existing provider’s processes).
Before you transfer, make sure you check if there’s any valuable benefits you might lose out on by transferring it, and if there are any charges from your old provider.
Your pension will be transferred as a cash amount (for example £10,000), and then invested into the Beach pension plan associated with your account.
Yes. You can transfer your Beach pension to another provider if you want to. You’ll need to get in touch with your new provider, and they’ll contact us to transfer it. We don’t charge any fees for this.
We’ll transfer your pension as a cash amount (e.g. £10,000), which means your investments will be sold before transferring. This should take a few weeks, but can be a few months depending on the circumstances.
Within your Beach account you can set your beneficiaries, who are people or charities you’d like to receive your pension if you sadly pass away. You can add up to 4 and these can be updated any time you like.
Ultimately it is your pension provider's decision who receives your pension, but your wishes are typically honoured unless there are special circumstances such as family matters (for instance a divorce has happened).
With Pension Wise (a government scheme), if you’re over 50, you’ll be able to speak to a pension expert for free. They can run through all your pension options moving forward, and answer any questions you might have too.
The advice is completely impartial, and there to simply help you make the best decisions for your future.
You can learn more about this on the MoneyHelper website.
Yes absolutely. We’ll be sorry to see you go, but you can cancel your pension within 30 days of opening your pension (pension pot), which you can do within the app, or contact us at [email protected]. No fees will be charged.
Any money you have added will be returned to you, this may involve selling your investments, which could have a different value than when you initially added money and invested. Meaning you may get back more or less than you added.
If you’ve made a request to transfer your pension to Beach, but have changed your mind, you also have 30 days to cancel the transfer (this can be any time after you have opened a pension, and you don’t need to close your Beach account unless you want to).
We’ll ask your previous pension provider to cancel the transfer, or if we’ve already received it, ask if they are able to receive the pension back (we’ll let you know if they are unable to).
After 30 days, you won’t be able to withdraw money from your pension through Beach, you’ll still be able to close your account, but you’ll need to transfer your pension to a new provider.
You can also transfer your pension to another provider whenever you like.
We pride ourselves on providing the best service possible, and your satisfaction is incredibly important to us – so if you’re not happy with any aspect of Beach, please get in touch with us at [email protected] and we’ll aim to put things right as soon as we can.
We aim to resolve most complaints within 3 working days where possible. If it’s a bit more complicated that requires more investigation and time, we’ll let you know.
If you’re not happy with the outcome of our investigation, you can make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The Financial Ombudsman Service is a free service to resolve complaints fairly. Here’s how to contact them:
Online: financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Email: [email protected]
Letter: The Financial Ombudsman Service Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR
Phone: 0800 023 4 567 (free), weekdays from 8:00am–8:00pm, and on Saturday from 9:00am–1:00pm
You’ll have 6 months to make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service after you’ve received the outcome of our own investigation.
You can find further information about making a complaint with our guide to making a complaint.
Our pension administration and operator partner, Wealthkernel (WealthKernel Limited), is the scheme administrator of the Beach pension, and it is their responsibility to handle administrative tasks behind the scenes. This includes (but not limited to), processing new joiners, contributions, transfers and withdrawals. Alongside processing tax relief claims and reporting to HMRC. They are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The Pension is registered with HMRC under Chapter 2 of Part 4 of Finance Act 2004.
The pension is governed by a trust deed and rules (may be amended from time to time). These are available on request. The trustee is Wealthkernel Trustees Limited, and is a bare trustee, with responsibility for securely holding the investments within your Beach pension, and separately from its own assets.
The information provided in this key features document is based on our understanding of the current law, practice and taxation, which may be subject to change. The law of England and Wales will apply in all legal disputes.
© 2023-2025 Beach Finance Ltd.
When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you put in. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances, and could change in the future. You should seek financial advice if you are unsure about investing.
Beach®️ is a registered trademark owned by Beach Finance Ltd.
Beach (Beach Finance Ltd) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (1010244), and registered in England and Wales (14969609).
