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- Our Pension-Products
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About our funds
Ready-made Multi-Asset funds
Multi-Asset investing is one of the most popular of the many investment strategies available. The reason being that these funds generally aim to provide a lower-risk investment than a pure equity fund (a fund investing in shares), but with greater prospects for growth than a pure cash or bond fund (a fund investing in cash, government bonds or corporate bonds).
Our range of four actively managed Multi‑Asset funds can invest across the world’s investment universe and may include asset classes such as shares, bonds and cash. This gives a greater degree of diversification, which means reducing the risk of investing in a single asset class or, “not putting all your eggs in one basket”.
The benefits of diversification are:
- Your investments will be spread across many countries, types of companies, properties and different bonds.
- This helps cushion any fall in the total value of your pension if any one of these experience a significant fall in its value for any reason.
- If any countries run into economic difficulties, there will be others that may not be as affected and the investments in these may counterbalance any impact.
The four funds also aim to manage downside risk (the potential for investments to lose value). This is achieved by offering four separate Multi-Asset funds which each target a different level of risk while aiming to optimise the return for that level of risk. Each fund will have a different mix of growth or “risky” assets (e.g. shares and commodities) together with “less risky” defensive assets (e.g. government and company bonds). Our four funds offer you a selection to choose from to match your appetite for risk and return.
My PortfolioChoice - Control your own investments
If you’re a knowledgeable investor, you might want to have more direct control and input into your investment design selection yourself. You can set the strategy, select the funds, match the funds to your appetite for risk and watch how they perform together with your Financial Broker. And you can decide when and how to change your portfolio to stay in step with how you feel about risk and respond to how your investments are doing.
You can see from our fund range, we can offer you plenty of choice when it comes to investment styles and markets around the world. Being in charge of your own investments is a rewarding option if you have the knowledge base. But you’ll need strong investment expertise, commitment and plenty of time.
For example, you may wish to select one of our Multi-Asset funds as a core of your investment portfolio and then select some specialist equity or bond funds to complement that fund in accordance with your attitude to risk.
My PortfolioChoice has been designed with you in mind, offering flexibility, added value and a fully online service. Together with your Financial Broker you have the option to build and maintain personalised investment portfolios by choosing from our full range of funds and add-on services.
These services include:
- Automatic Portfolio Rebalancing: Each portfolio can be automatically rebalanced either monthly, quarterly, half yearly or yearly. This keeps your initial portfolio allocation on track as originally planned and reduces the regular amount of work needed to monitor your investments.
- Flexible Lifestyle Strategies: Giving you the option to choose the level of portfolio risk, length of de-risking glidepath (how your investment glides from high risk to lower risk funds) and final retirement portfolio (what funds are in your portfolio by the time you retire). This reduces the risk associated with your investments as you near pension age, aiming to provide some protection when stock markets are falling.
The My PortfolioChoice service is available online. It provides a suite of portfolio management functions including fund switching, changing investment option, current valuations, full reporting and access to extensive fund information.
Building your own portfolio
You’ll need to decide how much risk you want to take with your retirement savings. You can follow changes in your portfolio to make sure it doesn’t expose you to more (or less) risk as time goes on.
- Choosing funds that match how you feel about risk: The more risk you’re ready to take, the bigger the returns you could get – and the more you could lose. Lower-risk investments give you more security but lower returns.
- Automatic portfolio rebalancing: Keeping your investment portfolio on track
Every investment portfolio needs a regular review. We know that markets go up and down, which will impact the value of your portfolio. Our automatic portfolio rebalancing system is optional and will consider these market changes and automatically realign your portfolio to match your original risk attitude and investment goals. This will help to keep your investments on track and can be set for annual or more regular reviews of your choice.
Understanding the risk
Decide how much risk you want to take
The more risk you’re willing to take with your investments, the higher your potential investment return – but the greater your chance of loss. Lower risk investments, on the other hand, offer greater security but with lower potential investment returns. You need to decide how much risk you want to take with your pension savings.
We’ve come up with different ways to invest, so you can find a level of risk you’re comfortable with. How you feel about risk is one of the most important parts of selecting the right investments for you. Some people are very comfortable taking risks, while others don’t like it at all. Maybe you already know where you sit on this scale. But even if you do, we’d still suggest talking to your Financial Broker to make sure.
Risk Profiles
Your Financial Broker can take you through the Royal London Risk Profiler online. This can help you understand more about investment risk and what levels of risk you feel comfortable with.
Once you answer the risk profiler questions, you’ll be categorised into one of seven risk profiles. You can then choose investments that match your risk profile.
Our fund range
You can see our full range of funds available to invest in on our Fund Centre which also gives details of fund prices and factsheets.
Our investment philosophy
Our key goal is to deliver the best possible outcomes for you. We do this by understanding your investment needs as agreed by you with your Financial Broker, and by keeping to our core beliefs.
- Strong governance: We believe that all investment options should be monitored on a regular basis and that through strong governance we can help to make sure they aim to deliver in line with their objectives. That’s why all our investments have a formal review process which includes regular meetings with our fund managers to make sure investment decisions are made in your best interest.
- Customer focused investment propositions: We believe the main driver behind designing investment propositions should be delivering positive customer outcomes.
- Responsible investment: We aim to generate good returns and at the same time also make a positive contribution to our society and environment by being proactive in asking the investment managers we work with to include environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities when they make investment decisions.
- Value for money: At the heart of our investment proposition is the aim to deliver value for money to our customers. We believe that by managing fees and costs and ensuring efficient implementation we can prevent unnecessary cost where possible. We also aim to be as transparent as possible in our reporting of how your investments are doing which you can access through our fund factsheets, quarterly reports on our Fund Centre.
An introduction to investing
When you put money into your pension policy whether it’s every month or as a lump sum, your contributions go into a pension “pot”, which is then invested to help it grow over time.
Once you’ve decided how you want your pension savings to be invested, an investment manager will be responsible for managing your investment in a range of funds. They can spread this money throughout a range of funds based on different groups of investment type - known as asset classes - such as property, shares, or bonds.
Once your money is invested, the asset manager will continue to closely monitor and manage the funds in line with their investment objective.
Fund Charges
We know pension charges can be confusing. That's why we want ours to be as easy to understand as possible but also fair.
Annual Management Charge (AMC)
The AMC is a yearly fee that we charge to manage your policy and take on a monthly basis. This fee covers the costs of setting up and the ongoing servicing of your policy and the management of your investments.
Your AMC depends on how your contributions are invested and the value of your policy. This charge is calculated as a percentage of your policy value. On certain funds, the AMC may be higher or lower. A proportionate AMC will apply when you take any retirement benefits, transfer your policy or switch funds.
Your Financial Broker will be able to discuss and explain your individual AMC.
Additional investment expenses
There may be additional expenses charged to the funds. These expenses cover the costs incurred by the investment management company and are taken from the value of the fund. The level of these expenses may vary across funds and from year to year. Our fund factsheets, which are available from your Financial Broker, provide you with the most up to date amount of the additional investment expense for a specific fund as provided to us by the investment management companies. You can read more about additional investment expenses here.
Your investments are in good hands
The broad range of funds that we offer are managed by two leading fund management companies: Royal London Asset Management and BlackRock.
Our expert investment manager Royal London Asset Management is also part of the Royal London Group, and will look after your pension funds by investing in a range of assets based on your risk profile.
Royal London Asset Management invests across all major asset classes for the long term and puts its clients at the centre of all that they do. Their experienced team of investment specialists manage around €174 billion of assets (30 June 2022).
BlackRock helps millions of people build savings that serve them throughout their lives by making investing easier and more affordable. Their global teams of investment specialists manage US$8.487 trillion of assets (30 June 2022).
Understanding responsible investing and Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) factors
Your pension is invested in the companies that are shaping the world’s future. Often, it’s the most money any of us will ever have invested in our lifetimes. It’s a powerful tool, not just for your future financial security, but as a way of advocating for the world you want to live in and that positive future.
As a life and pensions company, we choose the fund managers that look after your investment and select the companies, sectors and countries to invest it in.
As stewards of your money, our fund managers can look to influence companies’ policy on, for example, CO2 emissions. The greater the interest held, the more influence one can have, which puts large life and pensions companies like us and our fund managers in a strong position to make a difference on issues like this.
We are committed to being a responsible investor of our customer’s pensions and promoting responsible investing. This commitment means being a good steward of assets, working together with our selected fund managers and the companies they invest in.
Alongside this, we also believe that considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues can help us deliver better returns for our customers. This means there are long-term financial benefits to an approach that is rooted in shared values and a desire for companies to do things in everyone’s best interests.
Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)
Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is part of new European regulation
for financial services markets participants. It aims to provide more transparency on sustainability in financial markets and comparability in this regard between different funds.
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) are three key factors when measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of companies and businesses that Royal London funds invest in.
Who does it apply to?
The SFDR will require certain firms like insurance companies to comply with new rules on disclosure regarding sustainable investments and sustainability risks.
What does it aim to do?
The SFDR aims to increase the transparency with which affected financial market companies and financial advisers integrate sustainability risks in their investment decisions and investment or insurance advice and products.
The SFDR requires investment products sold in the EU to be categorised as one of the following:
- Article 9 Funds: Funds that have sustainable investment as their objective.
- Article 8 Funds: Funds that promote environmental or social characteristics.
- Article 6 Funds: Funds that do not purport to promote any kind of ESG objective.
These categories are decided based on the extent to which ESG or sustainability characteristics are integrated.
More about our funds
Fund Centre
Find out more about our fund range, performance and factsheets
Fund Guide
Learn more about our funds with this helpful guide.
Take some advice
We’re big believers in the value of impartial advice to help you enjoy the best possible retirement outcomes. So, if you’re looking to make the most of your pension savings, we’d recommend talking to a Financial Broker.
If you don't already have one, you can find one here.
Ring our Dublin team
for more information:
01 429 3333
Monday to Friday: 8am - 6pm
We recommend discussing your retirement options with your Financial Broker.
They’ll be able to look at your individual circumstances and give you a personal recommendation on how to get the most from your pension savings.
| Warning: The value of your investment may go down as well as up. |
| Warning: If you invest in this product you may lose some or all of the money you invest. |
| Warning: Past performance is not a reliable guide to future performance. |
| Warning: The income you get from this investment may go down as well as up. |
| Warning: These products may be affected by changes in currency exchange rates. |