Raindrop has been developed by a group of city professionals and tech entrepreneurs and has the backing of Resolution Compliance which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
It offers investment options
which allow users to choose a pension plan designed to be invested in a way
that meets their desired retirement date. Pension savers have access to funds
from global investment manager Blackrock.
Raindrop also provides a pension
AI bot service which can assist with finding old pensions, even for customers
with minimal information on their old plans, and consolidate them into one pot.
Marco Ross, Raindrop’s chief
executive, said: “Self-employed workers have long been forgotten when it comes
to the current and complex pension’s landscape. We know that there are many
barriers for people in saving for their future and few solutions that solve
them, until now. We also know from recent research that the pandemic has had a
big impact on the ability of self-employed people to save and they want to do
so flexibly.
“Raindrop goes much further than what
is currently available in that it has been developed specifically for the
millions of self-employed
workers across the country, but also provides one easy-to-use platform to
empower them to plan and save for their retirement in a way that suits their
circumstances.”
The new platform can be set up in
less than 10 minutes and allows millions of savers who are self-employed, but
who have been left out of benefits of auto-enrolment, to directly invest in a
pension in a way that suits them.
Savers also have the option to
flexibly adapt their pension payments whenever they want, opting for regular or
one-off payments, or pausing contributions.
A recent report by the UK
government-backed pension scheme, Nest, revealed that more than 80% of
self-employed workers don’t have a pension.
Philip Fortis, Raindrop’s chief
product officer, said: “Raindrop is flexible, secure and smart and works for
every freelance or self-employed worker, from accountants and plumbers to
architects and vets. As well as bringing together all the important aspects of
pensions for self-employed people into one, easy solution, Raindrop empowers
people to pick a pension plan based on the date they want to retire.”
*****Capital at Risk*****
