I'm in Pace DC

Yes you can. When you join Pace DC, you and the Co-op pay contributions into your account. Your contributions are taken out of your Pay each month and you will see these payments appear on your payslip. Your payslip with tell you what contribution rate you are paying if you’re not sure.

You can choose how much you want to pay into Pace DC – the table below shows your options.

You can change your contribution rate whenever you want by filling in the Increase or decrease my contributions form.

*If you were automatically enrolled and have not changed your contribution rate, your contribution will be 3% of your Pay and The Co-op will be paying 5% of your Pay. You can change to a different contribution level at any time. 

If you don’t think you can afford the minimum contribution, once you are a member you can choose to pay in a lower amount (1% or 2% of Pay), so that at least you’re making some savings for the future.

You can find out more about your contribution options in the Pace DC pension guide. The guide explains how your pension costs less than you might think, thanks to tax relief and NICE Pensions. You can use the Pace DC pension modeller to see how your take-home pay would change, depending on your contribution choices.

Can I change how much I can pay?

Yes, you can pay in more (or less) by using the Increase or decrease my contributions form. You can use this form if you want to pay up to 10% of your Pay into Pace. If you pay more, the Co-op will pay in more, up to a maximum of 10%.

If you want to pay in more than 10%, then you’ll have to use the Start paying AVCs form. Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) are extra payments you make into Pace DC. You get tax relief on your AVCs too, but you can’t pay them through NICE Pensions. You can change, stop and start your AVCs whenever you want.

You can use the Pace DC pension modeller to see what difference paying in more could make to the value of your account at retirement.

The money that you and the Co-op pay into Pace DC is invested. The aim of investing is to make your account grow.

Your account is invested with Legal & General. They’re one of the UK’s biggest pension and investment companies. You can see how your account is invested – and change your investment options at any time – by logging into Legal & General’s online system, Manage your Account.

In Pace DC, you can take the money in your account in different ways when you retire – for example, you can take it all as a lump sum or as an income. Because of this, we’ve given you a choice of investments that have been designed to match your different retirement options, so it’s important to think about this carefully.

If you don’t choose how to invest your account it will automatically be invested in the Target: Lump Sum Option. This default investment option has been designed to be a good match if you want to take your account as a lump sum at retirement. There are other Target options if you want to take your account in a different way.

If you don’t want to use a Target option, you can also choose your own investments from a range of six funds offered by Legal & General.

You can read more about how your account can be invested in the Pace DC fund guide. This guide also explains how much it costs to run and invest your account.

You can choose how you use the money in your account at retirement:

• Cash Lump Sum
  You can take all of your account as a cash lump sum; 25% will be paid tax-free and the rest will be taxed at your highest rate of income tax.
• Guaranteed Income
  You can use your account to buy a guaranteed income, which is called an annuity. If you want to you can take up to 25% of your account as tax-free cash and use the rest to buy an annuity. If you’re thinking about buying an annuity, you should consider taking advice. Legal & General can also help members who want to buy an annuity, by helping you shop around for the best deal.
• Flexible Drawdown
  You can get an income from your account that’s adjustable. This means you get a regular income but can change it or take cash sums if you need to. You get 25% of your account as a single, tax-free cash sum, and the other 75% is invested to give you a regular, taxable income. This option is also known as ‘flexi-access drawdown’. This option is not available directly from Pace DC so you'd have to transfer your account to another provider, such as Legal and General's Pension Access Scheme, at retirement.
• A series of lump sums
  You can take a series of lump sums from your account. Each time you take a lump sum, 25% will be tax free and the other 75% will be taxed, as income. This option is not available directly from Pace, so you'd have to transfer your Pace DC account to another provider who offers this flexibility, such as Legal & General's Pension Access Scheme, at retirement. 

If you want to, you can choose a combination of these options or you can choose to do nothing, but you need to think carefully about whether your money is still invested in the right funds. Options 3 and 4 are not available directly from Pace DC because you can’t leave some of your account invested once you have started to take money from it. You would need to transfer your Pace account to another pension provider, such as Legal & General’s Pension Access Scheme (PAS), who can offer this, at retirement.

More information on annuities, and all of the other retirement options can be found at yourpensionoptions.legalandgeneral.com/co-operative or by contacting Legal & General on 0345 026 8689.

While the Pace Trustees have facilitated access to this service, they are not recommending any particular course of action and are not responsible for information provided by the service.

Find out how much money is in your account today, by logging into Manage your Account.

You can use the Pace DC pension modeller to work out how much money you might have in your account at your normal pension date, so you can start to think about how you might use it.

You can find out more about retirement in the section I'm thinking about my retirement.