More Than Loose Change Down Your Sofa: Standard Life’s Pension-Finding Tool Reunites Customers with £50M of Lost Pension Savings in Just Five Months

Standard Life, in partnership with pension-finding platform Raindrop, has successfully reunited customers with £50 million in lost pension savings within the first few months of launching its innovative tracing tool.

The tool has already enabled 2,900 Standard Life customers to track down 3,000 lost pension pots using Raindrop’s pension tracing technology, empowering them to take control of their retirement savings.  

Recent research from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) revealed that £31.1 billion is estimated to be sitting in lost pension pots across the UK and, with the average Brit likely to have at least 11 jobs* In their working lifetime, the figure is likely to rise higher still. Employees regularly change jobs or move address without updating their pension provider and, with eight in ten (81%) working-age adults unsure where all their pension pots are and a fifth (19%) really concerned they don’t have enough saved for retirement, savers are increasingly at risk of losing track of their retirement savings and need support locating and, if it’s right for their situation, consolidating their pensions.

Standard Life’s research highlights that despite the benefits of pension consolidation - including reduced admin, better tracking of performance, and potential cost savings - three-quarters (73%) of people with multiple pensions have not consolidated them, and 32% are unsure how to do so.  

Standard Life, part of Phoenix Group and the UK’s largest long-term saving and retirement business, partnered with Raindrop, a fintech offering innovative pension finding technology, to help tackle the lost pots issue and support customers to track down their retirement savings. Standard Life now uses Raindrop’s technology to track-down and consolidate pension pots which can be found in as few as two days. Once a customer’s pensions are found, they are likely to have a clearer understanding of their income prospects and can better prepare for retirement.

Since its launch, Raindrop has located over £500m in lost pension savings across almost 45,000 pots.

Dean Butler, Managing Director for Retail Direct at Standard Life, part of Phoenix Group said: “Losing track of your pension savings can happen unintentionally, particularly if you change jobs and move to an employer with a different pension provider. The good news is that finding them again doesn’t have to be difficult – the success of our partnership with Raindrop shows how technology can simplify the process, quickly helping people to reconnect with their hard-earned savings. It’s good to see how digital innovation and this partnership is giving people a clearer view of their potential retirement income and greater confidence in their financial future.”

Vivan Shridharani, Co-Founder & COO at Raindrop, said: “This is just the tip of the iceberg - millions of UK savers have lost track of pension pots and need support taking control of their retirement savings.

“The fact that our tool has tracked down £50m in lost pension savings in just a few months demonstrates the appetite for a simple pension-finding solution – there are billions still sitting in lost pots waiting to be reunited with savers to enable them to plan for a better financial future.” 

Raindrop’s pension finding technology enables savers to locate lost pots by working with banks, pension providers and financial advisers including Standard Life.