Using Nest with your clients

At the most basic level you can simply inform your clients about their duties and advise them to use Nest. You don’t need to be authorised by the FCA to offer this service. Providing guidance on scheme selection isn’t classed as regulated activity so long as you don’t give financial advice to individual employees or offer advice on a scheme’s investment funds.

After they’ve chosen Nest, employers can set up their scheme and do almost everything online, whenever it suits them. You don’t have to provide any more services and your client will appreciate having a scheme that meets all their duties.

After choosing Nest some clients will want help deciding how best to use it in their organisation.

They’ll need help working out who has to be enrolled, how much to contribute and how Nest fits with their payroll and HR processes. And after they’ve made the key decisions about how they’ll use Nest there’s the business of creating their account, setting up contribution schedules and integrating the scheme with existing systems.

After you’ve set them up, they’ll be able to manage the ongoing administration for themselves.

A lot of clients won’t have the extra time or resources to sort out pension contributions for their workers in every payroll cycle. This could be a specific ongoing service that you offer. Some will also want someone to monitor their scheme to make sure it’s compliant. For example, if they’re using certification they might also want you to handle the paperwork. Your expertise in dealing with regulatory issues will add value for your clients.