Exclusive: KAS Bank expands cost transparency benchmark tool to DC trustees
KAS Bank has built on its cost transparency dashboard to offer UK defined contribution (DC) scheme trustees the option to benchmark costs relative to other pension funds.
The service - which launched last month - builds on the bank's dashboard which launched in 2017 for DB schemes, which have been using the service. The £3.2bn Superannuation Arrangements of the University of London was the first to sign up to the service mid-2017.
The dashboard aims to give schemes the flexibility to compare the costs across the universe of investment managers within their pension scheme, the custodian bank said. Comparisons can be made across areas such as total cost of ownership, pension management costs, investment management fees, and transaction costs.
KAS Bank noted that effective benchmarking closes the information gap for pension funds, providing insights for trustees to assess how they compare on cost, and they can use this knowledge to drive more cost efficiency.
UK managing director Pat Sharman said the benchmarking service is a "step further" in bolstering KAS Bank's flexible cost transparency solution.
"It provides the tools that trustees need to properly evaluate their costs, supplying them with information that helps them with their decision-making and governance oversight.
"Cost transparency in the UK pensions industry remains a top priority for policy-makers. Consequently, it continues to climb ever higher on trustee's agendas."
KAS Bank is aiming to continue to build on the dashboard for both the DB and DC universes in due course. It is also developing an end-to-end solution for DC schemes - from collecting data at the beginning of the process through to producing the cost section of the annual Chair's Statement.
The firm's cost transparency specialist Scott Foster told PP: "The more data you have on the dashboard, the more informative the benchmarking is.
"We want to have large universes where you can see and visualize where the costs are on average - so building on that would be great."
The news comes as the government's auto-enrolment provider NEST teamed up with KAS Bank to offer a cost transparency service for its range of target date and specialist funds, to launch in Q2 2019.
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