Standard Life bullish on auto-enrolment ambitions

LIFE and pensions giant Standard Life aims to provide 60,000 new workplace pensions a day, up from an earlier target of 4,000.

The group remains bullish on its ability to meet demand despite its workplace division suffering the loss of a number of senior figures in recent days.

The Edinburgh-based company announced it had boosted the number of people it is able to sign on through “auto-enrolment” after risk management consultants Towers Watson warned insurers would struggle to meet demand from employers.

Last year Paul Matthews, chief executive of UK and Europe, said the company had invested £600 million in its systems to prepare for changes under both the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and pensions auto-enrolment.

Standard Life said it can now “easily cope with demand”. It expects around 400,000 employees to enrol with it over the next four years, with around 300 employers signed up to implement auto-enrolment this year and around 3,000 in 2014.

Jamie Jenkins, head of workplace strategy, said: “During the past couple of years our focus has been on upgrading our systems to ensure our clients and their advisers can implement auto-enrolment easily and smoothly.”

Earlier this week the firm’s head of workplace proposition, Ann Flynn, announced she would resign from her role just days after workplace director Ronnie Taylor also quit for a job at rival Scottish Widows. The firm added it will announce a replacement for Taylor “in the near future”.