RBS starts pension auto-enrolment with a whisper
The Royal Bank of Scotland is the first UK company to roll out the pension auto-enrolment across its workforce
THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND has become the first UK company to auto-enrol its workforce under the government’s requirements.
RBS already operates a form of auto-enrolment for its workforce where employees are given an additional 15% of salary for its flexible benefits package. Four percentage points of this is automatically put into the pension scheme.
The bank has 42,000 members in its closed defined benefit scheme: 27,000 members in its defined contribution scheme and a further 14,000-15,000 employees who opted out or are contributing below the auto-enrolment minimum.
This latter group have now been auto-enrolled back into the scheme under the legislative requirements of a 2% contribution, the equivalent of 1% from the employer and employee. So far, 40% of this group have opted out for a second time.
The bank is the only company to choose to bring its date forwards ahead of the starting gun in October when the four major supermarket giants – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – will begin auto-enrolment in earnest.