Hargreaves Lansdown has halved its transfer time in a year to 21.2 calendar days from 43.3 days recorded in April 2021, and down from 29.6 days in January 2022, data from the Origo Transfer Index has shown.
The average overall pension transfer time recorded by the Index, a voluntary group of 28 companies that publish their transfer data on a quarterly basis, remained relatively unchanged in the first quarter of 2022. Overall transfer times for the quarter remained constant at 13.5 calendar days, compared to 13.4 days in January.
Smart Pension is the latest provider to join the index, this quarter.
Simple transfers, where the provider has complete control over the transfer process, took an average of 11.4 calendar days. However, Origo said 86.9% of transfers completed in the quarter were of the ‘simpler’ variety with a transfer time of just 6.3 days.
NFU Mutual remained at the top of the table, with an overall average transfer time of 5.3 calendar days. Hargreaves Lansdown made significant headway, while Quilter also improved its transfer times from 29.8 calendar days in January to 18.7 days in the latest data.
Danny Cox, head of external relations at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “We’ve made some good improvements over the past year, and we’re looking to improve transfer times further as we continue to invest in our digital backbone. We believe that publishing our transfer data is the right thing to do and can help drive better client outcomes – we encourage all other firms to do the same.”
Andrew Rafferty, CEO of Origo, commented: “The Origo Transfer Index was established to bring transparency to the market. Participation is voluntary and we are extremely pleased that Smart Pension is the latest provider to see the value to the industry of contributing its data to the Index, which includes most of the leading providers in the market.
“These providers are going to be among those delivering the fastest transfer times, facilitated by the Origo Transfer Service. They are setting the benchmark for the rest of the industry to follow.”
[Main image: mathew-schwartz-sb7RUrRMaC4-unsplash]
