Standard Life welcomes Options for pension transfers

Standard Life has welcomed phase 2 of the Origo "Options" service which speeds up the time taken to transfer pension funds between providers.

Phase 1 of the service covered transfers from Pension to Annuity, phase 2 covers transfers from Pension to Pension. The average industry turnaround for transfers via the new service, just published by the ABI, is 11 calendar days.

Standard Life is pleased to be one of 8 providers on the new service and to have all non-occupational products in scope, including, Personal Pensions, Stakeholder, SIPP and WRAP SIPP. 

Ronnie Collard, Customer Service Director, Standard Life commented: "Since the service launched in December 2008, "Options" has significantly improved transfer times, allowing the industry to transform the service it is providing to customers and Intermediaries. We are delighted to be part of phase 2 which is delivering improved times for Pension to Pension transfers.

We are very pleased with ours and the industry's performance on the service and will continue working to improve this still further.

Given that this is an excellent initiative for providers to support, I would encourage providers who are not yet part of the service to join".