Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
With all businesses required to install auto-enrolment pension schemes between from 2014 to 2017, dependent on number of employees, the British Independent Retailers Association (bira) has joined forces with Towergate Financial to create a guaranteed acceptance auto-enrolment pension scheme, exclusively for bira members.
Bira said: “The pensions industry is expecting a rush on demand for SMEs from 2015 onwards, with no guarantee of SMEs being accepted into schemes and a huge range of rates and fees being associated with these schemes.” Bira claimed that its scheme, which opened for registration today, offers ‘a low cost, legally compliant auto-enrolment pension scheme to cover employees’.
Robert Jarrett, bira’s professional services and special projects director, explained: “We’ve been working with the Towergate group for some time now to offer various exclusive products for our members from insurance to health cover. We seized the opportunity to tackle the issue of auto-enrolment as we felt our members would welcome help navigating the new workplace pension regulations. This scheme takes the headache out of auto-enrolment for a very low cost.”
Bira members can sign up to the scheme online through the dedicated website www.birapensions.co.uk for a small registration fee and an annual governance fee. They will then gain access to software which, once payroll details are uploaded, automates the whole process, including employee communications and contributions.
Towergate Financial is also offering a dedicated helpline to bira members, with trained advisers to answer queries on the scheme, or on auto-enrolment in general.
