I am responsible for running my company’s SSAS pension scheme. It’s administered by Barnett Waddingham and we use TD Direct as our direct share platform. I notice it are now owned by Interactive Investor. If our shares are held in a protected nominee company, then presumably they are safe. The TD website only refers to a limit of £50,000 compensation per account, so I don’t know if the pension shares are held safely or not. Can you say if they are?
G Oates
There is no single umbrella protection for small self-administered pension schemes (SSASs) as such, instead different types of protection apply depending on where a problem arises. SSASs are typically set up by directors of a company or the business owners, to allow them to manage their own pension fund. The advantage of an SSAS is that it allows great flexibility when it comes to the underlying investments and this is a key attraction because it means greater risks can be taken. Also, loans back to the business are permitted.
Each SSAS will be set up as a trust and the members of the scheme will be the trustees. The scheme provider – in your case Barnett Waddingham – sets up the trust structure, registers it as a pension scheme with HMRC and deals with administration. The buying and selling of investments will be done by the trustees using a trading platform or broker such as TD Direct, as in your case.