Widows wrap platform nets first customer

CSC already provides IT services for the My Money Works (MMW) platform, and will now offer its own staff access to its range of services.

An unpublished document seen by schemeXpert, which details the plan, cites a group personal pension with the “ability to create a bespoke lifestyle strategy”, a corporate self-invested personal pension and a Lloyds TSB cash ISA.

It also offers to keep track of the performance of all an employee’s financial products, from any provider, in a single place.

And at MMW’s launch event last Thursday, corporate advisers and employee benefits consultants were told it can be expanded to include more tax-efficient vehicles, pending clarity from the government on its tax avoidance policy, as well as more “open architecture” inclusion of external providers’ products.

It was revealed in a previous article that Scottish Widows was planning to include managed investment plans in its wrap, and the insurer is likely to go ahead with this plan if it is assured the endowment product is not set to lose its tax-exempt status.

And in May schemeXpert.com's sister title Pensions Week confirmed two unnamed firms had signed up to MMW – the first of which is CSC.

AWD Chase de Vere employee benefits consultant Sean Mc-Sweeney said he was “positive” about the design of MMW. But he added: “We do have some concerns about the appetite of employers to put their name to a range of products from one house.

“What happens if, for example, Lloyds TSB’s cash ISA rate becomes very uncompetitive? Is there reputational risk?”

Scottish Widows described the product as “a range of options [for] planning effectively for retirement... not just via a company pension plan”.

The news follows Standard Life’s deal with Logica as a first client for its own wrap proposition, to be launched shortly.