Transforming the retirement journey through PlanViewer

Members can now access their pension savings through PlanViewer

If your workplace pension is a Fidelity Master Trust or contract-based scheme, members can now make withdrawals online.

Drawing on more than 300 hours of customer research, we’ve developed a clear and simple way to start the retirement journey. Using their PlanViewer account, a member can go through the withdrawal process on their phone, laptop or desktop. They can explore their options, look at the tax implications and make their decision, whenever and wherever it suits them.

The process takes around 30 minutes from start to finish, and they’ll receive the money from their pension into their bank account in around 7-8 days. That’s about half the time it took to do it the ‘old’ way.

How does it work?

• A member logs into PlanViewer and starts the withdrawal process.
• The system checks they’re eligible to access their pension savings. (There are a number of reasons a member might not be eligible, but it must be within the scheme rules, and they must have reached the normal minimum pension age).
• They’ll see clear, side-by-side comparisons of their options, along with risk warnings and the tax implications of each choice they can make.
• They can choose which fund they’d like the money to come from, or ask us to split the withdrawal across their investments.
• All the relevant security checks are carried out, exactly as if they’d called the Fidelity team. And there’s an extra layer of protection because the transaction happens inside their PlanViewer account. If we need any additional identity documents or bank verification, they can upload it instantly.
• The system generates a detailed quote which shows how taking money out now will impact their pension in the future. And when they’re ready to withdraw, they can push the button, and get an immediate on-screen confirmation of their request.

At any point, they can save what they’ve done, and when they go back to PlanViewer their previous answers will be remembered. They’ll have plenty of opportunities to check their options again before they make a decision.
 

Transforming the retirement journey

Sam Burlinson, our Retirement Propositions Lead, says, “Getting access to money from your pension has been a long, multi-step process involving phone calls and posted forms for far too long. Research showed that our members were keen to have another way of accessing their pension – one they felt more in control of.”

Previously, they would have to call our Workplace Investing Service Centre team – in working hours, of course.

• We’d send them their Wake-up Pack in the post, and they would call us again when they received it.
• On the second call, we’d explain their options to them in full. We’d go through the risk warnings, and complete their identity and bank account checks.
• After that call, we’d send them their Quote Pack (either by post or through Docusign). They would have to check all the details, sign the documents and return them to us.
• If any of the identity checks failed, they’d need to send us the relevant ID documents, by post or email.
• Once we received and checked them, we’d initiate the payment and send the member a letter of confirmation.
   

A fast, straightforward and fully secure process on PlanViewer

With our new online withdrawal option, a member gets all the information they need at exactly the point they need it.

Sam says, “It makes it easier for members to manage their own pension account. They can check their options and read everything as many times as they like. They don’t need to make any important decisions about their future until they’re absolutely ready.”
 

Making it easier for members – why PlanViewer?

Our strategy is to help your employees make smart choices about their retirement plans. And we know that PlanViewer plays a central role in their experience – in 2025, we saw a 42% increase in members age 55 and over using PlanViewer to check and manage their pension accounts.

Our goal was to design a journey that prioritised what was most important for people starting to access their pensions. The many hours of customer research we undertook showed us how people think as they approach retirement. This helped us plan the journey in the right way so we could support members throughout.
 

Designed for desktop – fully optimised for mobile

While we heard frequently during our research that members would only consider doing a pension withdrawal on a laptop or desktop because it was a ‘big screen job’, we were interested to see that 40% of them went through the journey on their mobiles.

This shows us that even older people (aged 55 and over) are happy using a more convenient method of accessing their pension, particularly if they can save what they’ve done and go back to it later.
 

What’s next?

The next step –is to make it possible for members to create their own regular drawdown plan through their PlanViewer account. It means we can fully support them in making good decisions for their retirement.

We’re still here to help over the phone – but now members have a choice about how they can access their pension savings.