Mid-career pensions planning

The HSBC Bank (UK) Pension Scheme

Mid-career pensions planning

As you come to the middle of your career, you may start to think more about your plans for life after work. Taking time to complete a mid-career pensions MOT, looking at all your different retirement savings, can help keep you on track for a comfortable retirement. This is an important time to be considering:

How much you have already saved for your retirement?

How much you might need in retirement?

Whether you have a retirement savings gap (the difference between how much you have already saved and how much you might need),

How you could start to bridge a savings gap

Now is also a good time to start gathering key information about your retirement savings, consider bringing some or all of your retirement savings together and think about other important later-life planning.

The best place to start a mid-career pensions MOT, is to check how much you have already saved, across all your retirement savings over your career.

As a Hybrid member in the Scheme, you have built-up both Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC) benefits. It’s important to understand the difference between the two types of benefit and how they work together.

Our Hybrid member refresher guides and tax-free cash explainer video can help.

The refresher guide tells you more about how you can find the current value of your DB pension and DC pension pot, the different options for taking your DB Pension, including your early retirement options and the benefits of taking your DB pension and DC pension pot at the same time.

Our tax-free cash explainer video tells you more about how you can use your DC pension pot for your tax-free cash lump sum at retirement, as well as how to roughly estimate the tax-free cash lump sum you could take.

Read our Hybrid member refresher guide:

Click to launch - for all other Hybrid members

Click to launch - Midland for Hybrid members

Watch our tax-free cash explainer video

Click to launch - for all Hybrid members

Some members may find it easier to keep track of what they have saved by bringing all their retirement savings together in one place. Our member blog explains some key points to think about before you transfer any benefits.

Read our member blog

Should I bring all my pension savings together?

Once you know what you have already built-up, you can then work out whether you have a savings gap. Our savings news article tells you more about how to work out if you have a savings gap as well as lots of ideas for how you can fill it.

Read our savings news article

Mind the retirement savings gap

Top tips to help your planning for the future

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s Retirement Living Standards website www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk - shows what life in retirement looks like at three different income levels. Each income level is based around a particular retirement lifestyle - "minimum", "moderate" or "comfortable". It also takes into account different circumstances (e.g. living inside or outside London). It gives you a sense of what you might be doing and how you could be spending your money when you finish work.

The pensions calculators that are available online are a good way to find out how your pensions savings could grow between now and when you retire. They can help you to work out whether you’re on track for the retirement you want, or whether you have a retirement savings gap. They can also help you to understand how much more you will need to save to fill a savings gap. Take a look at the MoneyHelper pensions calculator at: www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pensions-basics/pension-calculator.

Your State Pension could be an important part of your retirement income. It’s worth finding out how much you will get and when you can start taking it by going to: www.gov.uk/checkstate-Pension If you find that you’re not on track to get the full State Pension, you may be able to give it a boost by making voluntary National Insurance ( NI) contributions. The government can set specific deadlines for making these voluntary contributions for particular years, so it’s important to regularly check for any deadlines so you don’t miss the opportunity to boost your State Pension. To find out more about paying additional NI contributions go to: www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions.

Over your career, you may build up retirement savings with a few different employers or pension providers. If you have lost touch with a pension scheme, you can get some help to trace it by going to https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details.

Many people think that wills are only something that older people need but if you have any assets, it’s important to have a will whatever your age. It’s the only way to be sure that your wishes in relation to your money, property and investments are met after you die. To find out more about writing a will, go to the Family and Care page of MoneyHelper at https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk.

More information

Your DB and DC pension benefits working together

The Hybrid member guide tells you all about your options for taking your benefits from the Scheme. If you have a question about your Scheme benefits, this guide is the first place you should check.

Advice and guidance

Change content The DC member guide tells you all about your DC pension pot. You will find lots of information and explanation about your options and benefits including details of how pension tax works. If you have a question about your Scheme benefits, these guides are the first place you should check.

The HSBC Bank (UK) Pension Scheme