The benefits of transferring your UK pension to New Zealand.

If you’ve migrated to New Zealand, or returned from a working holiday in the United Kingdom, there can be significant tax and financial advantages to be gained from transferring your UK personal or company pension fund to New Zealand.

Pension funds transferred to qualifying schemes exit the UK without a claw back of tax incentives gained whilst saving in the United Kingdom. This means you are not only transferring your physical savings and UK tax free gains, but the accumulated tax relief as well.

By transferring to NZ you'll know exactly where your funds are:

You won’t lose track of your funds
You’ll have full control of your funds - and won’t be forced to deal with your present pension provider half-way around the world.
You won’t need to worry about your overseas pension company – is it healthy, merging, collapsing or disappearing altogether?
Exchange rate fluctuations and transaction charges won’t erode your pension payouts when you retire (current charges on regular pension payments from Britain can be as high as £19.00 per payment).
In some circumstances your funds can be released in part or full well before retirement age (subject to UK regulations effective from 6 April, 2006).
No need to take an annuity at retirement time. NZ pension accounts can be paid out as a tax-paid lump sum, taken in instalments of your choosing or used to purchase an annuity.
Upon your death your pension account balance is payable to your estate. There are no death duties levied in New Zealand.

What can be transferred?

Personal pensions including contracted-out plans
Stakeholder plans
Section 32 buy out bonds
Occupational schemes and attached AVC accounts
Self invested schemes – either "cashed up" or "in specie"
Residual fund balances associated with pensions in payment.

Britannia has special arrangements in place to transfer 131 type contracts from Jersey - and locked-in plans domiciled in any country within the European Union.