Here's a fact that may surprise you. Up to 20 per cent of GBPensions' clients aren't British. The team also helps returning Kiwis and other expats who've lived and worked in the UK and have now decided to settle in New Zealand.

What are the UK pension transfer options for returning Kiwis?
New Zealanders who are coming home essentially have the same choices available for their UK pension as anyone else – be they British, French, American, South African, or any other nationality.

In April 2015, largely brought about by public pressure, the UK Government introduced its Pension Freedoms reforms, stating:

… the annuities market is currently not working in the best interests of consumers. It is neither competitive nor innovative and some consumers are getting a poor deal.*

Terry Baucher of Baucher Consulting is a well-regarded tax specialist, whom we regularly recommend to clients. In this guest blog, Terry shares some insights, and highlights a few of the important differences between the tax regimes in the UK and NZ.

First, and this is not always as obvious as you might think, New Zealand’s tax system is very different from that of the UK. For starters, there is no tax-free personal allowance, so every dollar of income is taxed. 

Type "UK pension to NZ" (or similar) into any search engine, and you're presented with numerous companies extolling the various benefits of transferring your British pension to a New Zealand Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS).

Some of these organisations have "QROPS" or "transfer" as part of their name or may even be promoting their own QROPS product, so you could be forgiven for thinking that transferring to a QROPS is the only viable option.

This is categorically NOT the case!

​Along with millions of people around the world, the team at GBPensions are donning their posh frocks and fancy hats and sitting down on Saturday night (NZ time) to watch the wedding of HRH Prince Henry of Wales to Ms Meghan Markle.
 
And, of course, we all wish Harry and Meghan many years of health and happiness together.
 
At this time, it seems like a good excuse to share a few facts and figures about previous royal weddings.

St George's Day means cake for morning tea in the GBPensions office! This gave us a moment to pause and consider that we've already marked the "feast days" of three of Britain and Ireland's patron saints. But who were these men and why do we celebrate them on those particular dates?

Here is our first interesting fact of the day. Did you know that Saints' Days are celebrated on the days upon which they are believed to have met their (sometimes grisly) demise? This seems unusual in its precision, since there are often very few specifics known about their lives.

In the weeks following 2016's Brexit vote, Immigration NZ received 10,600+ registrations of interest from Brits. That's more than double the figure for the same period in 2015. Whilst not all of these registrations have actually eventuated, the stream of skilled British immigrants moving to New Zealand remains strong and steady.

​In 2017, net migration to NZ hit an all time high of 72,000, and Brits accounted for nearly 10% of this. In fact, the UK (6,728) only comes behind China (10,351) and India (7,409) in terms of migrant numbers, and is still ahead of South Africa, the Philippines, France and Germany.

Buying presents for Brits can be a painful process. We're notoriously non-committal, favouring "Oh, just surprise me!" over any kind of useful comment. Upon opening said surprise, we will likely say, "That's great, thanks" in a somewhat lacklustre tone. Even other Brits aren't sure how to interpret this…

GBPensions would like to try and alleviate some of your Christmas present shopping woes.
 
We've considered predictions for 2017's Christmas bestsellers from some of the UK's major retailers (such as Argos and John Lewis), added a few thoughts of our own, and come up with the following suggestions.
 
Please note: despite our best efforts we cannot guarantee that any of these prezzies will enthral or delight their British recipient. Sorry about that.

We speak frequently about the moving goalposts of UK and NZ pension legislation and how these might affect transfer options for NZ residents, and 2017 has been no exception.

For the first time in some years, there was a bit of potentially good news for investors regarding access to their funds! Here's a quick recap of the year's significant updates – and a few words of caution about how some members of the global financial services industry appear to be changing their tactics.