You’ve requested your pension transfer, the paperwork is underway, and now you’re waiting for it to arrive.
So what actually happens when it reaches your InvestEngine SIPP?
The short version: we’ll let you know when it arrives, your pension will appear in the portfolio you selected, and you can start investing any transferred cash straight away.
Here’s what to expect.
How will I know my pension transfer has arrived?
You won’t need to keep checking your account every five minutes.
Once your transfer has completed, we’ll send you an email and your transfer status will also be updated in your InvestEngine dashboard.
The transferred pension will then appear in the portfolio you selected when you started the transfer.
Will my pension arrive as cash or investments?
That depends on how your pension is being transferred.
There are two main possibilities.
Cash transfers
With a cash transfer, your existing provider sells the investments in your old pension before sending the proceeds to InvestEngine.
When the transfer arrives, you’ll see the money as cash in your chosen SIPP portfolio.
From there, it’s ready for you to invest.
In-specie transfers
An in-specie transfer moves eligible investments across without selling them first.
If you’re transferring ETFs that are available on InvestEngine, you’ll see those investments appear as holdings in your chosen portfolio once the transfer completes.
If your existing pension contains investments we can’t accept in specie, such as individual shares or mutual funds, those holdings will need to be sold and transferred as cash instead.
That means some transfers can include both investments and cash.
Will my transfer arrive in separate parts?
It can do, especially if you’re transferring both ETFs and cash.
For in-specie transfers, eligible ETFs are usually re-registered first. This most often happens on the same day, but it can sometimes take longer depending on the provider and the transfer details.
Any cash included in the transfer will normally follow afterwards, usually within 1–5 working days. Cash almost always arrives as a single consolidated amount, rather than in several smaller payments.
So if your ETFs appear before your cash, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything has gone wrong. It may simply mean the cash part of the transfer is still being processed.
What do I need to do when my transfer arrives?
If your pension arrives as eligible ETFs through an in-specie transfer, those investments will already appear as holdings in your portfolio.
The next time you open the destination portfolio — the portfolio where your ETFs have landed — you may be asked to set the target weights for those holdings. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to use the usual portfolio tools, including rebalancing, topping up, withdrawing, selling or buying more investments.
If some or all of your pension arrives as cash, you’ll need to decide how you want that money invested.
If you’ve already built your DIY portfolio, you can start investing the transferred cash as soon as it appears in your account.
InvestEngine processes buy and sell orders once each UK working day. Orders placed before 2pm will usually be included in that day’s trading cycle, with trading taking place after 2:30pm. Orders placed later will normally be processed on the next working day.
What if I already have AutoInvest switched on?
Even easier.
If AutoInvest is enabled for your portfolio, cash arriving from your pension transfer will automatically be invested according to the target weights you’ve chosen.
For example, if you’ve set your portfolio to split new money between several ETFs, AutoInvest will use those target allocations when putting the transferred cash to work.
That means you can set up how you want your pension invested while the transfer is still underway, rather than waiting for the money to arrive before making those decisions.
Where can I see my transferred pension?
Your transferred pension will appear inside the SIPP portfolio you chose when starting the transfer.
You can also use your InvestEngine dashboard to check the status of the transfer while it is underway and see when it has completed.
If you place an investment order once your cash arrives, you’ll also receive an email or in-app notification when the order is submitted and when it has been executed. You can follow its status through your portfolio dashboard too.
Why is the value different from when I started my transfer?
Don’t be surprised if the amount that arrives isn’t exactly the same as the value you saw when you first requested the transfer.
Pension values aren’t fixed.
If investments are being sold as part of a cash transfer, their value may have moved between the date you started the transfer and the date they were sold.
Similarly, with an in-specie transfer, the investments themselves can continue to rise or fall in value while the transfer is taking place.
The valuation shown when you start a transfer is therefore a snapshot at a particular point in time, rather than a guarantee of the amount that will eventually arrive.
There may also be circumstances where your existing pension provider applies an exit fee or other charge associated with transferring.
If you’re concerned about the value of your pension at any point during the transfer, get in touch with our support team and we can help you understand what has happened.
Do I need to start another transfer if something doesn’t look right?
No.
If you already have a transfer in progress, don’t submit another request for the same pension unless our customer support team asks you to.
Submitting a duplicate transfer request can make the process more complicated rather than speeding things up.
If anything looks unusual, check the latest transfer status in your InvestEngine account first. If you’re still unsure, contact us and we’ll help you work out the next step.
Your pension has arrived. What next?
Once your transfer completes, the complicated bit is largely done.
If your pension arrived in specie, you can review the ETFs now held within your SIPP.
If it arrived as cash, you can start putting that money to work in the portfolio you’ve chosen. And if you’ve already switched on AutoInvest, we’ll automatically invest the cash according to your target portfolio weights.
Either way, your old pension is now sitting alongside your InvestEngine SIPP, ready for the next stage of your retirement journey.
Capital at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. Pension and tax rules depend on your circumstances and may change in the future. InvestEngine does not provide investment advice.