Aegon offers employers ‘holiday’ on new scheme

Aegon UK yesterday launched an aggressive move to grab marketshare for workplace pensions two weeks ahead of new rules coming into force which requires employers to provide workers with retirement savings schemes.

The Edinburgh-based firm said it will reimburse 50 per cent of employers’ first three months’ of contributions placed on the firm’s new platform before the end of 2013. The offer will remain available to smaller companies who will need to launch a workplace pension scheme in coming years.

It comes after the firm unveiled a “unique” platform for workplace pensions, Aegon Retirement Choices, last week.

Chief executive Adrian Grace said: “We want to get auto-enrolment going, and fast. Every day that it does not happen is a day when someone is not saving enough for retirement.”

From 1 October, the UK’s largest employers must enrol all eligible employees into a qualifying pension scheme with other employers phasing in over the next four years.