India based UK expats located into a Country with no QROPS providers- Third party QROPS is a Solution

Non-resident Indians form one of the largest expatriate populations in the world. About 80% of the Indian expatriate's have savings in an existing UK pension fund but are considering to retire in other countries outside UK including India.   Most of these expats do retire in countries like Singapore etc where there are no QROPS providers.

Around 180 countries are not represented in the global QROPS market place with its over 3000 pension funds giving rise to worries for India based retirement savers who wish to invest. Even though, it looks like disadvantage, actually India based UK expats got much more opportunity than any other UK expats from other nations.

Even though, India based UK expats retires  in a country where QROPS providers is not found, these expats can still invest in QROPS in India. Most of the insurance companies in India offers QROPS products & India based UK expats can transfer their UK pensions & enjoy the benefits of QROPS over UK pensions. The additional requirement for the expats is to fill an additional form known as ‘ PIO/OCI Questionnaire’ (person of Indian origin/Overseas Citizen of India Questionnaire).

The respective insurance company in India grabs some of the important information of the expat’s through this Questionnaire. Some of the important information like their country of citizenship, address in the country of citizenship, social security number (if any), country of residence, passport details& more importantly how the expat relate to India as PIO/OCI etc.

It doesn’t mean that only QROPS available in India is a solution for Indian expatriate’s living in a country where QROPS are not available. Most of the features of QROPS in India do not match the needs of the people of this segment. For instance, once the UK pensions transferred to a QROPS in India, usually the corpus gets locked & the same cannot be moved into another HMRC recognized pension scheme if the Member wishes. The member has to remain with the scheme lifelong and avail pensions from the same Insurance Company on vesting. If any other insurance company pays higher pension rate than the current provider, still the Member got no provision to move his/her corpus & avail the higher benefits since most of the QROPS providers in India got no open market option.

The next best solution for Indian expatriate's is ‘third party’ QROPS.  The popular jurisdictions for third party QROPS are Gibraltar, Malta and the Isle of Man. These jurisdictions got about 300 OFF Shore pensions to select.  The advantage is, once the UK pensions transferred to a third party QROPS the expats can move across the Globe without any obligation to often shift his/her UK pensions whenever they make a move. Because the expats does not have to be the resident of the jurisdiction where QROPS is based.

As for as income tax is concerned is , the same has to be paid where retirement saver lives & not in the centre where QROPS is established. Moreover, the tax liability arises if there is any due. Most of the QROPS schemes make Gross payments & tax is not deducted & transfers the pension benefits in any major currency to the member’s local bank account avoiding the potential exchange rate charges. The most advantage from this third party QROPS is that, even though the expat has not yet decided where exactly to retire, still this option  gives relief to take decision on their own time and at the same time offer peace of mind that retirement savings are not diminishing due to a string of early exit transfer fees.

A good independent financial advisor can advise you the right QROPS (both in India & OFF Shore) & Jurisdiction to get your UK Pensions transferred.

Please contact me for an informal chat about the transfer scheme with my following Contact details.

Mr Ravi Kumar. Financial Consultant.  Exide Life Insurance Co Ltd

28, 6^th Floor, Centenary Building,  Adjacent to Raheja Towers, M.G Road, Bangalore-560 001.       

Cell: +91 9980927393,  +91 9844519872

Email:  ravi.sampige@gmail.com

UK Consultation office :

QROPS Advice

Global Administration office)

14-18 Heddon Street, Mayfair

London-W1B 4DA UK

Email: ravi@qrops-advice.net