Since its launch in November 2022 the FutureWise Target Date Fund (TDF) strategy has grown from £6.5bn to £20bn. FutureWise is getting recognition winning Corporate Adviser Ultimate Default Fund in 2024 & being ‘Highly Commended’ in 2025. It has been a story of going from strength to strength, leveraging the best of Fidelity’s unique skills, global capability and investment excellence.
In Fidelity we trust
FutureWise was launched in 2012, offering clients the ability to delegate their default investment strategy to Fidelity in order to reduce governance burden and leverage Fidelity’s global investment excellence. Fidelity offers a single default across all client types from contract to Master Trust, which launched in 2013.
The successful transition of 260 clients and 250,000 members in 2023 from the legacy FutureWise lifestyle to the FutureWise Target Date Fund (TDF) strategy was tremendously powerful in ensuring all our default members continued to benefit from our best ideas and clients’ faith was maintained.
At the time, many clients were being advised to use bespoke strategies. However, as the regulatory pressure for greater value increased and as FutureWise evolved with greater sophistication and access to private markets, we have seen accelerated adoption of FutureWise across all our Defined Contribution clients, including single employer trusts, for the following reasons:
- Scale for improved value and access to private markets
- A rigorous governance process with an emphasis on transparency
- Implementation of consistent financially-material sustainability beliefs
- Increasing investment sophistication and flexibility, both from a bottom-up and top-down perspective.
The launch of the FutureWise TDF strategy enabled us to significantly accelerate our innovation towards the goal of improving member outcomes, while providing members with a simplified investment journey to and through retirement.
Conviction in our beliefs
Few providers in the UK workplace market can say they have as developed capabilities across workplace administration and investment management globally. FutureWise has demonstrated this thought leadership and conviction through our belief in a single default strategy, rather than launching glidepaths toward annuity and cash purchase like many of our peers.
While this approach has been challenged by the market, increasingly the regulatory and political push from Mansion House has been towards a single default philosophy that focuses on maximising pots at retirement, emphasised by the fact that members often need support in meeting their retirement needs.
Surprisingly Fidelity is the only workplace provider not to sign the Mansion House Compact & Accord, thereby protecting fiduciary duty and leaving our portfolio managers free to allocate wherever the opportunity is strongest.
Investment innovation driving improved member outcomes
We strongly believe that a transparent and robust governance structure helps both Fidelity and our clients understand how FutureWise is performing, and this also spurs us on to greater heights.
We introduced regionally denominated investment grade and high yield bonds on approach to retirement, as FutureWise becomes more flexible to regional divergence in central bank policy and inflation risks.
Additionally, we introduced climate aware government bonds in early 2025, and access to gold, minimum volatility equities, global inflation linked bonds and shorter duration bonds in order to tackle the challenges of US trade policy and increasing uncertainty in the market.
At the beginning of 2025, FutureWise also made its first investment into the Fidelity Diversified Private Asset Long Term Asset Fund (LTAF), focusing on primary closed ended general partners. This has been a huge success in both accessing the most complex area of private markets, but also where we see the greatest potential in improving member outcomes.
Overall, clients can rest assured that every step is being taken to safeguard their members’ future and that FutureWise will take the necessary steps to innovate and adjust to the changing regulatory and market conditions ahead.
Delighting clients continues to be our mantra as they are the backbone of how FutureWise is forecast to achieve over £30bn of AUM by 2030, well in excess of the £25bn threshold put forward by the Pension Schemes Bill.
We are proud of the success of FutureWise and celebrate the FutureWise TDF’s third birthday at the end of this year.