Chris Eastwood, Penfold CEO On Winning “Best Pension” 2026

AI Generated Transcript

Holly Mead (00:03)
Welcome to Good Money Guide. name’s Holly Mead and today we are talking to Chris Eastwood. He’s UK CEO from Penfold, which has just been voted best pension provider in our 2026 investing awards. Congratulations on the award. Are very excited?

Chris Eastwood (00:15)
Hi ⁓

Very exciting indeed, big moment for Penfold.

Holly Mead (00:21)
Tell us a bit about Pimfold and what you guys do.

Chris Eastwood (00:24)
Yeah, so really Penfold exists to make pension saving so much easier, more accessible, more engaging, so that people save more for later life. Stepping back to why we started the company, hardly anyone is saving anywhere near enough for later life. there’s lots of reasons for that, but two of the big ones are people don’t understand pensions, people hate dealing with pension companies, there’s so much friction, so many hoops to jump through, so much difficult processes.

PenFod exists to use technology to remove all of that friction, make pension savings so much easier to interact with so that people do it more and pay more attention to their retirement.

Holly Mead (01:03)
I’m going to get into the big question first. Okay. Are you an avid pension saver?

Chris Eastwood (01:08)
I am, I am. one of those people way before starting Penfold that I think I read an article on compound interest. And at that point I was hooked for life where it said, you never look back, if you save a certain amount of money from age 20 to 30 and then stop, you’ll end up with more than if you save that same amount of money from age 30 to age 60. And when I saw that and worked out the maths myself, I thought, okay, now’s the time to start saving to a pension and started nagging my friends to do the same. so that really was the Genesis for me about.

spending my career in pensions.

Holly Mead (01:40)
I love that. There is, you know, that moment with the compound interest out calculator. I’m sure we’ve all had it when you realise the magic.

Chris Eastwood (01:47)
It’s the secret weapon. It’s the only way that people can really feasibly save enough to live comfortably in later life is by starting early and benefiting from combat interest.

Holly Mead (01:57)
Now look, you’ve won a whole award and everything. So what makes you guys the best pension provider or what makes a good pension provider generally?

Chris Eastwood (02:05)
Yeah, you know, I see the problem I mentioned before around so much friction in pensions, really that’s due to technology or the lack thereof and legacy infrastructure, which some of the larger pension providers, because they’ve been around for so long, it’s very hard for them to deliver really seamless, modern user experiences. And so what we do differently is precisely that. We’ve built our own pension operating system on our own technology.

that allows us to make pension savings so much easier, so much slicker. It’s lots of different, lots of little different things that add up to making pension savings something that people will want to engage with. So it’s so much easier to open an account, track down and find, track down and combine all pensions, see how much you should be saving, to where it’s invested, all of the above that, ⁓ you know, previously is very difficult to get into and we make it so much easier.

Holly Mead (03:00)
Now you mentioned earlier, we do have a pension crisis in this country. We’re not saving enough. Auto-enrollment means that everyone who’s employed at least 22 years old and earning at least £10,000 is automatically signed up to a workplace pension scheme. Is that going to fix everything?

Chris Eastwood (03:18)
It’s not, I’m afraid. It’s a great thing that’s happened, getting those stats you mentioned, so many more people saving into a pension for later life. there are lots of people that aren’t covered. So the self-employed, 5 million people who aren’t saving anywhere near enough. think 17 % of the self-employed save into a pension. That’s nowhere near enough. The other thing is, because there’s a government mandated 8 % in the alternate enrollment regulation, a lot of people feel that that’s enough. There’s a false sense of security there.

Really, it’s not. Also, because a lot of businesses use what’s called qualifying earnings, that 8 % isn’t even on someone’s full salary. so really, if someone was saving 12 % of their salary from the start of their career, that’s broadly should get them to a good spot for retirement. But most of the population aren’t doing that because of the levels where it’s set. So yeah, that’s where we feel our product and our proposition can really help. It’s about educating people about

much they need to be saving, from what point and how they can get there, so that they can break out of that false sense of security.

Holly Mead (04:23)
The qualifying earning band is such a big bugbear of mine. you think any government’s going to be brave enough to increase that 8 % minimum?

Chris Eastwood (04:32)
I was really hoping. There’s a lot of chatter about pensions. There’s a lot of policy being put forward by the government. There’s a lot of potential with improving the pension system and a lot of good changes that are being put forward, some more questionable. But I feel like a really missed opportunity is by not looking at that savings level. Most of the industry is pushing for a higher, it’s moving to 8 % to say 12%.

or at least removing qualifying earnings. It’s difficult. Obviously that requires businesses to pay more, people to keep less of their paycheck. And that’s very challenging in times like this, but at least starting the ball rolling in working out a way to get to that 12 % really needs to happen.

Holly Mead (05:19)
You mentioned the self-employed bit of the puzzle. How do you think we can solve that? Because it’s a huge issue and I think you are right, it’s 17 % and they don’t get any help, they don’t get that employer contribution. So even if they are saving, then it’s a little bit harder.

Chris Eastwood (05:34)
Yeah. So I think there’s a, we’re all about design thinking and UX and how that can change behavior. And so I think one of the neat tricks that could happen to help the self-employed save more is by looking at the self-assessment. You know, that’s the critical point of the year where someone who’s self-employed is thinking about their taxes and their finances. And one of the major benefits clearly with pensions is that people can offset their tax bill through higher pension contributions. So

If there was an easy way while someone was going through their self-assessment, perhaps themselves or their accountant, that they could opt into or even opt out of a pension contribution at that point and see the impact it has on their tax bill, I think that could have a big impact on increasing the proportion of self-employed who saved more. I think the other side is then incentive. can the government look at, as you say, because there’s no employer contribution, are there different tax breaks that could be available for people who work for themselves to

incentivize higher contributions.

Holly Mead (06:37)
And what do you think is one easy thing that we could all do today to boost our pension pots?

Chris Eastwood (06:44)
So start early. So if you haven’t started to start, that’s obvious. Exactly. So making the most of compound interest. think looking at the contribution amount. So if you’re employed, is it 8 %? Is it qualifying earnings? Is that enough? By and large, it probably won’t be enough. So using a simple calculator to see how much could I push that? Is my employer willing to match if I put more in?

Holly Mead (06:50)
you didn’t start early, get high machine.

Both of are very generous as well, you just need to ask the question.

Chris Eastwood (07:17)
Yeah, three additional little tips that people find really helpful. know you asked for one, but know. No. Deflol. one, salary sacrifice. So if you have an employer, see if they will pay into your pension via salary sacrifice. It saves national insurance for you and for the employer. You can end up with more in your paycheck and more in your pension scheme. It’s a win-win. That’s number one. Number two, if you’re a higher rate earner,

Holly Mead (07:23)
I’m gonna give you three

Chris Eastwood (07:44)
check if you’ve got tax relief that you can claim from HMRC. You can look back up to four tax years if you’ve had a relief at source pension scheme. Nest is a big one. You will have ⁓ extra tax relief to claim from HMRC through the self-assessment. That could be thousands of pounds. And yeah, and number three, think back to every job that you’ve had. Do you know where the pensions for all of those jobs are? Perhaps combine them into one pot, but at least work out where they are so you don’t lose that money.

There’s 50 billion pounds of lost pension money out there and so that’s something that people can do to claim back what’s rightfully theirs.

Holly Mead (08:19)
That is one of those admin tasks that always feels a bit like it’s going to be really laborious. How easy is it in practice to track down a lost pension?

Chris Eastwood (08:29)
So it’s getting easier and easier. So digital platforms like Penfold, but there are others, help people in holding their hand through that process. Step one is knowing who the pension provider was. That can be the biggest challenge. There are tools that can tell you who that is, but the best way is to just reach out to the employer and ask them. That’s the quickest way. Once you know who the pension provider is, the next best thing to do is to know the policy number. So you really need paperwork to do that.

searching back through your emails for the name of that pension provider, you can find out the policy number or call up the pension provider. Both of these things, your new pension provider, one of these digital platforms can do that for you, but it is quickest if you do it yourself fundamentally. And then once you know who the pension provider was, what the policy number was, it’s super, super quick. You can enter those details on our platform. takes a couple of minutes to do that and combine them all together. So there is a bit of legwork. Some pension providers also

ask you to fill out forms to transfer away, which can be painful. So until the system changes, until more regulation is brought in to smooth that process, that’s just a fact of life that you’ll have to go through that painful process.

Holly Mead (09:43)
I think the average lost pot is about ten grand or so, isn’t it? So, I mean, if someone offered you ten grand to fill in two forms, I would probably do that.

Chris Eastwood (09:52)
something really strange in pensions where people think of it differently to money in their bank account. Ultimately, you can access it in 30 years time, you think of it very differently. so, yeah, if there was 10 grand in a bank account, would move hell and high water to find that 10 grand. ⁓ And it doesn’t seem to be the same with pensions, but it really should be, ⁓ because that’s money that you’ve earned.

Holly Mead (10:16)
So other than losing or not tracking down old pots, what’s the most common pension mistake you see people making?

Chris Eastwood (10:23)
I would say it goes back to that false sense of security. It’s thinking that I’ve got a pension through work and so I’m fine. So because 8 % and if it’s qualified earnings isn’t enough, you don’t want to wait 10, 20 years to think about to realize that you’ve missed 10, 20 years of compounding growth on higher contributions. So yeah, think taking a look at what the contribution amounts are and working out if that’s enough and if you can afford to.

put more of your paycheck into your pension from an earlier point because it will make all the difference in the long run.

Holly Mead (10:57)
Now I think one of the problems that people have with pensions is it does seem like the rules and the allowances change about every five minutes. Is that a big problem that you see?

Chris Eastwood (11:09)
There’s a lot of noise about pensions and every budget cycle there’s lots of fear mongering around the tax relief rates are going to change and the tax free lump sum is going to be removed or higher rate relief is going to disappear. Actually those big fundamental aspects of pension saving don’t tend to change.

Holly Mead (11:30)
with the lifetime allowance change a few times.

Chris Eastwood (11:32)
The lifetime allowance, absolutely. And so, you know, all that noise and chopping and changing erodes trust in pensions. People feel like the rug’s going to be pulled from underneath them. For most people, you know, the lifetime allowance may not be relevant, you know, obviously for higher earners it is. Very high earners. But yeah, I think it’s more around that the issue is eroding trust because of all the little tinkering, but actually the big things tend to stay the same. So people can feel confident.

that pensions are a great way to save for later life.

Holly Mead (12:05)
What do you think are some of the key challenges or themes coming up for the year or so ahead for the pensioned industry?

Chris Eastwood (12:12)
There’s a lot of ⁓ change being introduced by the government. So around how much value pension providers need to bring to their customers. I mentioned one of the reasons we started the business was that we felt that for too long, individual savers were neglected by pension providers who focused more on compliance and serving the employer, particularly in workplace pensions.

government is bringing in regulation to change that a little bit. So bringing in minimum standards that pension providers needs to offer with their proposition for end customers. that’s precipitating a lot of investment in digital propositions, looking at how the money’s invested and ultimately the value that a pension provides to the end customer. Other changes like decumulation, so for people who are approaching and entering retirement,

what are the default pathways for them to move into retirements and access their money. big challenges ahead are propositional. There’s lots of investment in technology, lots of investment in how a pension provider provides their service to their customer. We feel we’ve got a head start on that because that was why we started the business and what we’ve been doing for years. But yeah, that’s going to be big theme for the years ahead.

Holly Mead (13:34)
Do you think the pension dashboard, if and when it finally arrives, will help with all of that and make it easier for people to engage?

Chris Eastwood (13:43)
Absolutely.

It’s a big moment for the pensions industry. It’s been a long time coming, as you mentioned. And I think one of the problems that we’re sort of talking about is visibility and people seeing that it’s their money and certainly forgetting about these lost pots. if it works and someone can just enter their national insurance number and see all their money, that’s a huge, know, sea shift in how pensions work and providing more visibility for people’s money. so, yeah.

As I say, if it works, fantastic. It’ll put a lot more power in the hands of the end customer to choose where their money is kept and which provider is giving them the best service. we really look forward to it. We think it’ll be a big moment. We’re hopeful that that happens later this year, but let’s see.

Holly Mead (14:31)
So we talked about the inertia of thinking that those auto-enrollment minimum contributions are enough. think another big area of inertia is the default fund. a lot of people, the majority of people get plonked in a fund with their provider and never think about it and assume that’s working well for them. a lot of them don’t. What are your thoughts around what people can do there?

Chris Eastwood (14:55)
Yeah, it’s another, it’s not a big reason why a lack of engagement in pensions can be a problem. one big reason is working out if you’re saving enough, which we talked about. The other is the way that the money is being invested appropriate for you. Now, arguably, it’s the job of the pension provider to choose a default strategy that is in the best interests of the majority of their customers throughout their lifetime. So is it applying enough risk in the early years so that people could benefit from compound growth?

And is it de-risking in later years to reduce risk for people? There are strategies out there that take the opposite view and ultimately lead to people not benefiting from investment growth in the early years. So it is really important. Step one is engaging with the pension. Log on to the platform, work out how much you’ve got, how much you’re saving. Step two, try and find out how the money’s invested. Looking at an easy way to start is look at how much of the…

the pension is invested in equity. If that’s high 80s, 90s, 100s and you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s, that’s probably about right. If it’s that high when you’re much closer to retirement, that’s probably a bit too high.

Holly Mead (16:06)
punching a little bit there. you could change one thing about pensions, waive your magic wand, what would it be?

Chris Eastwood (16:15)
What would one thing I could change about pensions? I think it’s the… payroll. Which ⁓ is probably not the last you were expecting.

Holly Mead (16:25)
I know. ⁓

Chris Eastwood (16:27)
So we primarily show up in the market as a workplace pension. We’re also a personal pension. But within workplace, because there’s so many different payroll softwares out there and so many different pension providers, a lot of whom have quite old platforms and old infrastructure, there’s a lot of difficulty and inefficiency for finance teams, for businesses, for accountants in getting all that data from…

payroll into the pension provider. And it’s something that we and others in the market constantly come up against as a real barrier for why businesses might not switch their pension scheme to something that delivers much better service to their employees and much better proposition to their employees. So yeah, think it’s something that puts people off, certainly decision makers at businesses, puts people off changing and thinking about

⁓ you know, making improvements to the pension scheme because they know there’s so much admin complexity in the pension. So if it was just so much easier for a business to choose which pension was best for their staff and for their staff to choose which pension was best for them, which might be multiple different pension schemes at a certain employer, all of which is held back by payroll at the moment. If that was different, then it would provide a lot more choice, ⁓ put a lot more, I suppose, power in the hands of the consumer to choose what’s best for them.

Holly Mead (17:49)
Do you find that a real challenge as a of a relative upstart in this field where there are just those Eagle Legacy providers and perhaps they’re not the best providers, but they sure have the most AUM?

Chris Eastwood (18:02)
Yeah, I you know, I guess that’s the same in any market. I think what we find is there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the status quo. And so, you when we show people the proposition, there’s a lot of interest in it. And so really, it’s not a case of I don’t see that that is better for my staff. It’s more a case of, you know, is it going to be too much of a pain to switch or perceived pain to switch because of some of these peril issues to

to stop them from doing it. it stops becoming a tier one priority. So yeah, think the challenge is not about proving that the proposition works better for customers. It’s more about inertia and getting people to look beyond the status quo.

Holly Mead (18:49)
You can see that worry for a company because I mean, anything to do with payroll, you cannot afford for that to go wrong even for one month because you are going to hear about that.

Chris Eastwood (18:59)
Yeah. mean, the funny thing is modern platforms handle this stuff much better. So we’re able to integrate with payroll and, and auto correct errors that come through from the payroll side, cetera. So it’s more of a sort of perceived problem. So people think that it might be challenging. People are worried that it will cause problems, but actually when they do, they realize that their life is so much easier than it was before. But yes, absolutely. know, pensions are a…

are sort of secondary to payroll. When payroll is run, where all the calculations are made, that happens first and then it’s really an output that comes to the pension provider. So it’s not like it can cause any real problems in terms of how much people are paid.

Holly Mead (19:39)
Let’s get away from the heady world of payroll. I want to ask, obviously pensions can be complex, difficult to understand. What is the one book you would recommend to someone who is trying to improve their knowledge of pensions or finance generally?

Chris Eastwood (19:53)
Yeah, well, there’s a book that we really enjoy and it’s a bit of a Bible at Penfold and many sort of fintech challenges, I would imagine, which is Nudge. really… I love that book. Yeah, I mean, there’s even a whole section on retirement. And it’s really about how small design choices and the way that you present information can have a massive outsize impact on the people’s behavior and the choices that they make. so…

going back to what Penfold does differently, really we’re all about those little design choices around how do get people to engage in their pension. And that’s what that book is all about, what are the different ways in which you can frame things to help people change their behavior.

Holly Mead (20:37)
And auto-enrollment is one of the biggest and most successful nudges, arguably, of all time.

Chris Eastwood (20:43)
Exactly,

the easiest choice to make is no choice at all. having a default, having auto-enrollment where you opt out rather than opt in is by far the best way to get someone to do something. And so for us, it’s what are the next things that you can do to build upon that?

Holly Mead (20:58)
So think sometimes people actually overlook the fact that their pension is invested just like their stocks and shares might be. And there’s a lot going on in the market. So what do you think are some of the biggest investment themes at the moment?

Chris Eastwood (21:11)
Obviously AI is a massive theme and will continue to be a theme into next year. You know, as we move from productivity tools into agents and, you know, using AI to manage financial risk and all of that. But I think one theme that’s quite interesting to us, which is relevant to us, I suppose, is ⁓ the longevity and the economics of aging. So populations are getting older, people are living longer.

birth rates are falling and that’s having a massive reshaping effect on how people live their lives and the products and services that exist across healthcare, financial services, retirement planning, how people work for longer in their lives. you know, I think that capital will increasingly flow to businesses that help people manage their longer lives, both physically and financially. so, you this isn’t a, it won’t be a big bang.

theme that’ll hit in one market cycle. will be a long decades long shift, but I think we’ll really start to see that come into action over the next year or so.

Holly Mead (22:18)
And can I ask about your own investments? Is your pension in the default fund?

Chris Eastwood (22:22)
My pension is in the default fund. You know, I had a hand in building the default funds. It’s a good one and it does perform very well. So yes, my money’s there. Beyond my pension, one investment that’s gone well this year is gold. So I managed to benefit from a lot of that growth this year.

Holly Mead (22:29)
Okay, so it’s a good one. ⁓

Do think it will keep going?

Chris Eastwood (22:49)
Who knows? Probably not. But I don’t have a crystal ball. ⁓ yeah, I think there’s been a lot of growth this year and let’s see across a bunch of areas and I’m not sure how much longer it’ll go for. But yeah, that’s outside of that and I suppose where it’s not gone so well anytime I’ve done anything with crypto. ⁓

Holly Mead (23:09)
Yeah, that’s fair. Tell us about one of your crypto experiences.

Chris Eastwood (23:13)
Well, I think it’s quite a long time ago now, when probably one of the first big hype circles probably jumping on that bandwagon a bit too late. Luckily, I didn’t I didn’t overextend myself. So it was more of a more of a dabble. So we’ll certainly keep in character out of the pension scheme for now.

Holly Mead (23:29)
Excellent. And so if you were offering one bit of advice to someone who is thinking about their pension today, what would that be?

Chris Eastwood (23:37)
Yeah, I think it would be look at how much you’re saving. ⁓ Work out, that enough for you? Use one of these calculators ⁓ and see if you can afford to move some of your, increase your contribution percentage from say 8 % up to 10%. You might find that the amount that’s deducted from your payslip isn’t as much as you think, but it has a massive impact in the long run.

Holly Mead (24:04)
So tell us to finish off what’s going on at Penfold in the months or year or so ahead.

Chris Eastwood (24:09)
Yeah, so we’re six years into our mission to help as many people as possible save enough for later life. We just passed a major milestone. So £1 billion invested in the pension scheme, which is off the back of a couple of years of fairly rapid growth that saw us nominated or included in the Deloitte Fast 50 and the Sifted 100 fastest growth tech companies. And we were really pleased that alongside that rapid growth,

We were also able to maintain really great customer service. our trust pilot rating is 4.7. So the joint top pension provider and also winning this award obviously is testament to that too. So where does that leave us now? We’re investing a huge amount in evolving the proposition. So, you know, we never stand still. We feel like we’ve got a great platform, but there’s a lot more value we can bring to our customers. So evolving, looking at our fund range, looking at how we help people transition from work into retirement.

looking at how you can complement other savings products with your pension. And then as well, you know, looking at how do we get our product in the hands of as many people as possible. So rolling out a bigger team for ⁓ who speak to employers and accountants and others to sell our proposition.

Holly Mead (25:25)
Well, thank you so much for your time and congratulations again. thank you for watching. And if you are a PemFold customer or have any experiences with the business, head over to the Good Money Guide review page and tell us your thoughts. We look forward hearing from you.

Chris Eastwood (25:28)
Thank you so much.