Sovereign Pension Services’ teams gather in Guernsey to celebrate Your Island Pension
Sovereign Pension Services (SPS) Managing Directors Darren Whitley (MD of SPS Gibraltar); Cristina Cassar Difesa (MD of SPS Malta) and Sean Gilease (MD of SPS CI) along with Sovereign Group CEO, Gerry Kelly are pictured here together in Guernsey this week, to mark the launch of phase two of the Your Island Pension (YIP) scheme roll out. Good Rebel – a restaurant in St Peter Port and an early adopter of YIP was the location to celebrate the continued success of the scheme last night, with green cocktails to match the banners. The event included a musical performance from Katie Markham, speeches from Sean Gillease and Helen Dean, Ex-CEO of NEST as well as a Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF) Guernsey auction, presented by Howard Bilton, Chair of Sovereign & SAF.
In 2022, Sovereign Pension Services CI won the tender to administer Your Island Pension (YIP), the government-backed pension scheme designed to help employers meet the new legal requirement to auto-enroll eligible workers into workplace pensions. Launched voluntarily, 6 months early, in January this year, it is designed to provide an easy, simple and affordable pension for any size of employer. It has proved so successful that many employers have started early.
Next month sees the next tranche of employers with 11 – 25 staff, provide a secondary (workplace) pension for their employees.
Sean Gillease, Managing Director of Sovereign Pension Services (CI), expects applications to rise, with further deadlines for smaller businesses in January 2025. YIP offers a no-fee, one-size-fits-all solution for businesses of all sizes in Guernsey and Alderney to allow them to meet their legal duties under the Secondary Pensions Law. YIP does not charge any employer fees and so is accessible to all businesses irrespective of size or sector.
Darren Whitley, Managing Director of Sovereign Pension Services Gibraltar (SPS) commented: “we are proud of our sister company in Guernsey, as managing YIP is a massive coup and it further underlines depth of Sovereign’s extensive expertise in designing and administering occupational pension and savings schemes, serving clients from large international corporations to small startups. Gibraltar is also currently undergoing a UK style compulsory pension regime roll out, with this year being the turn of employers sized between 51 – 100 employers. Having supported many clients in creating their own workplace pensions scheme has left us with little doubt that an occupational scheme, whilst it may be mandatory is also an incredibly effective staff attraction and retention tool, so the benefits are felt for years to come and return on the investment is guaranteed”.
Whatever your requirements, Sovereign’s experienced retirement planning teams are on hand to assist throughout the process, from design through to implementation. Please get in touch for more information: Localpensions@sovereigngroup.com
