Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Several Advantages of a QROPS Transfer for British Expats Based Overseas

QROPS Pension Transfers are a great way for Brits living overseas to maximise their pension income. This topic discusses the many advantages of QROPS pensions and the choices available to expats who own a UK pension.

Thousands upon thousands of Britons are deserting the United Kingdom to live abroad.  As well as a a warmer weather, and much lower cost of living, a key potential benefit of living abroad is that UK expats can also maximise their retirement years from a pecuniary perspective by transporting their domestic pension into a QROPS fund.

 QROPS  is an acronym for Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme, and these pension vehicle have existed since 2006. In short, these QROPS pension funds allow Britons to move their frozen UK pensions into QROPS schemes which offer a significant number of gains.

The first key attribute of a QROPS pension is that there no longer an obligation to invest in a badly performing annuity. Under UK pension rules,  there was a need to obtain an annuity.  Over the past few years, annuity returns have performed very badly, which resulted in the the monthly annuity payout was very low when one compares the situation with rates many years ago. In consequence, the standard of living for people who were forced to obtain an annuity, went down.

Another key  QROPS  advantage is that the remainder of any pension fundsleft over after the death of the pensioner can be given directly to the next of kin. Under British regulations,, the annuity part of the pension couldn't be bequeathed. This was very bad if the pensioner died soon after the annuity.

There is also a much enhanced level of investment flexibility within a  QROPS pension for NRIs to India.   Once the QROPS is established have a enhanced choice of how your assets can be invested.  As well as this, you can choice you risk appetite, so that if you want to take a bigger risk, then you can choose funds which has an additional level of risk.

An additional benefit of QROPS pensions which is often overlooked, is that you can drawdown the funds from the QROPS in the denomination of currency as you wish. This is a key plus for pensioners living in European countries, such as Spain, Cyprus and France, but who before had to rely on an income based in sterling – these people have witnessed their effective incomes reduce by over 10%, as the Euro has gone up against the pound. QROPS for Indian residents have become especially popular, as there are so many Britons living there, taking advantage of the clement weather.

Therefore, to conclude, you can see that there are many benefits of a QROPS pension. But, in order to ascertain whether a QROPS is suitable for you, it is essential to look for of professional QROPS advisers.