Retirement and pension services

A pensions strategy that delivers on corporate strategy

Despite market volatility over recent years, funding levels of defined benefit (DB) retirement plans have improved significantly. Sponsors and trustees should take advantage of any opportunities to progress towards their long-term targets.

For defined contribution (DC) plans, individuals may be feeling anxious about what is going on in financial markets and how that affects their lifetime savings. Leading organisations are taking proactive action on their communications and engagement strategy to inform people’s decision-making and support them. Many are using new technology to personalise the output for each individual.

Employer-provided pensions and retirement benefits are an essential part of reward and compensation packages. It is important for employers to be aware of, and to manage, the associated costs and risks. They can also have a critical role in helping their employees to make sound decisions.

PwC has a track record of helping our clients address and manage their retirement and pension issues, being able to provide completely independent advice and execution.

"Given the disruptive conditions all pension stakeholders now face, it helps to have a wide-ranging understanding of markets and business to develop great solutions to today’s pension challenges."

Raj Mody,Partner and Global Head of Retirement Consulting, PwC United Kingdom

What are our clients’ concerns around pensions and retirement benefits?

Are you in control of your organisation's pensions costs? Or are you struggling with the governance and risk associated with the retirement benefits you’re providing to your people? Is your retirement plan design aligned with your wider people strategy?

Five key themes emerged from PwC’s global retirement consulting practice speaking with leaders and decision-makers at global companies with pension commitments, spanning more than 80 countries.

Companies are focused on retirement benefits
High, potentially volatile legacy liabilities are top of mind
Companies want to help employees save
Pension advice should be holistic
Governance can often be improved

How we can help

It helps to have a wide-ranging capability and understanding of business, to solve today’s retirement and pension challenges. In addition to PwC's retirement, pensions and actuarial experience, we bring together deep specialists in a range of areas including: tax, legal, accounting, structuring and credit analysis.

PwC has over 10,000 pension specialists across 50 countries, helping our clients to address and manage their retirement and pension strategy. It’s ultimately our people who make the difference. This includes a depth of capability and client service which has been independently rated as number 1 in the world. The PwC pensions business achieved this score from ALM Intelligence, the last time they reviewed the pension consultancy market. More details on how they made that decision is included in our press release.

Retirement and pensions strategy
Investment consulting and asset management strategy
Plan design and transformation
End-game planning and implementation
Deals, including M&A and insurance transactions
Financial reporting

Retirement and pensions strategy

PwC works collaboratively with you to understand key drivers and objectives for your retirement and pensions benefits. We combine this understanding with our industry, pensions and regulatory experience to help create a retirement and pensions strategy which aligns with your overall business strategy.

Investment consulting and asset management strategy

We have extensive experience working with Boards, CEOs, executives and subject matter specialists (many with 15-20+ years of experience in the pensions sector) as well as key service providers to solve complex problems across the investment value chain, and develop more efficient asset strategies. We can do this fully independently.

Our investment management, retirement and actuarial services work with a broad and diverse range of clients and industry participants to provide you with valuable insights as to how you compare with your domestic and international peers and competitors.

Plan design and transformation

PwC’s technology-driven approach enables us to design new pension plans for our clients to meet their objectives and align with their existing HR and Finance policies.

Our unique pension technology solutions enable us to generate interactive impact analysis so we can work with clients to deliver sustainable solutions in the challenging and complex pension landscape.

End-game planning and implementation

We have a successful track record of helping clients accelerate their progress and reach their end-game, with several successful case studies completed during recent volatile market conditions.

Deals, including M&A and insurance transactions

PwC has extensive experience in supporting you across the entire transaction cycle, including M&A due diligence, pension scheme valuation, post-acquisition integration and implementation. We use proprietary technology to support clients in achieving value-for-money insurance transactions, helping clients secure pension liabilities and reduce their own balance sheet risk, underpinned by independent advice. We understand how pensions fit in the wider commercial and competitive context and therefore formulate our advice in this context. We provide you with support and advice to enable you to make the right decisions and run quick, smooth processes that are fit for each specific deal.

Financial reporting

Our pension actuaries are well-placed to review pension plan assumptions and methodologies, and review treatment of special events. We provide valuable and insightful information for management reporting purposes.

Embedding technology at work

PwC's approach centres on using technology to reduce compliance burdens for clients, enabling them to focus their time and energy on addressing the strategic issues facing their businesses. We have a suite of new technologies across our global practice, to help drive efficiencies and allow clients to understand data and information in a more natural and visually accessible way.

PwC can deploy state-of-the-art collaboration technology allowing all your pension stakeholders to work together better, alongside us as a joint team if required. This includes virtual meeting techniques, document collaboration and technologies to enhance creativity if working remotely, such as virtual reality.

Retirement and pensions