Penfold is a pension provider for self-employed and is the latest addition to Starling Marketplace, where the customer is able to browse third-party providers and services.
With this, Penfold joins 26 companies already integrated with Starling’s marketplace as Starling currently has 3% of the UK SME banking market.
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Penfold has been designed for people who are self-employed and are willing to save for retirement, even when their monthly income fluctuates. The pension plans can be paused or altered at any time from the Penfold app. There are no extra fees to make changes, just a flat fee of 0.75% per year based on the average value of your pension. The Penfold app is specifically designed to be easy to use.
Anne Boden founder and CEO of Starling Bank said: “Our business customers work incredibly hard ensuring their companies thrive, but planning for retirement isn’t always factored in.”
“The integration with Penfold will encourage them to invest and benefit from the government contributions and tax relief which can make savings go so much further,” she added.
At the very moment when the customer opts to link Penfold with their bank account, they will be able to see the amount they have saved, their monthly contribution amount, and any fluctuations in investments within their Starling app. The new features will be available to Starling’s 180,000 SME customers from today.
Chris Eastwood, Co-founder of Penfold said, “The growth of self-employment in recent years has led to 15%* of the UK workforce market now working for themselves – that’s around five million people. Previously pension providers hadn’t progressed to accommodate the needs of this growing workforce. Our new integration with Starling further highlights the need for simple to use, flexible pensions for the self-employed, that are centered around excellent customer service.”
