I can’t do a partial either, but what I do is put in the transfer to AJ Bell (which Standard Life can’t action until it’s no longer a work pension), along with an application to open a new work pension (and explain things in the email). Twice so far and no problems.
PS You don’t miss any contributions, but I pop it in just after the Christmas pay to give them more time to process it.
The thing is if you apply to transfer whilst being a contributor to the scheme Nest will outright reject it even for the whole amount. Anyway - there may be a workaround but thankfully no longer a me problem!
Nest also use a lifetime account style system. If you transfer out you lose access to the account but when if sign up with a new employer using them the money starts going back into the same place.
It is doable, but employer initially said ‘you can’t have two work pensions’ and I had to explain that as soon as they put the application in for the ‘second’ the first would become a personal pension. At that point, you just do the transfer quoting the account number of the first one.
In fact, due to a bit of messing around, the first one was sitting there for several months before the transfer went through.
I think Standard Life might be better set up to accommodate this than Nest. It’s about as flexible as a rock.
Sounds like it would be much harder to arrange with nest 
On the bright side, at least it’s not with the People’s Pension crew. Apparently very popular with employers despite being declared the worst pension scheme on just about all criteria a few years back.
Guess what - my scheme prior to Nest was TPP. Smaller employers often offer worse schemes sadly.
I’m now with Aegon Scottish Equitable and despite the IT leaving a lot to be desired, the offering itself is streets ahead.
The last government were intending to do a consultation on having employers pay into a pension of your choice. Would have been fantastic, but probably scuppered now.
Isn’t that bit of a headache for payroll/finance teams? Especially if you have a large workforce ?
With the right changes to payroll software and self-service portals it should be possible without too much difficulty. Even if checks are required by the payroll team, how many people change pension arrangements that frequently? For most employees it would be set up when they joined the payroll, amd never changed while they were in role.
I’ve just accepted a permanent role for my last few years of work and the biggest annoyance is having to have a new pension fund not of my choosing.
Shouldn’t be difficult, even for frequent changes. Our place let’s you have your pay paid into multiple accounts, so pensions wouldn’t be much different in principle.
It would get around the business of some employers just offering the cheapest, even when it might be a rubbish pension.
Meanwhile, in America
So the gift from Coutts for this years Christmas was a F&M Hamper and a bottle of my preferred champers, very happy to say the least.
I also managed to utilise numerous Coutts Crowns to get some presents and redeemed some for a Harrods Gift Card for the OH.
Looking to expand relationships next year too after I was invited to a Weathersby Bank networking event at Cheltenham
The gift came from my private banker on behalf of the Bank, who over the years from various dinners and meetings has remembered my preference.
They have a keen eye for detail to say the least.
As someone who way breaks the £85K in FSCS Protection how do you like handle the protection for your money in banks?
Do you just trust they wont go bust or do you get some additional protection or something?
No additional protections but yes sort of rely they don’t go bust.
Three easy ways are the below:
Just to name a few
It’s so interesting to hear other people’s experience with Coutts - I’ve been a Coutts customer for about 5 years and I used to have a great relationship with my private banker but he moved overseas. I used to get tickets to any show I wanted at the O2 and a bottle of Champagne and a card at Christmas etc. Now I with my new banker I’ve not heard a thing from them and they could not care less about me or my business - shocking really.
I’ll keep my account for now but I don’t get nearly the kind of service or experience you’ve enjoyed. Do you have a Coutts Silk card too or just a normal account?
Also, it’s a shame that Coutts are not supported as a connected bank by Monzo. I don’t know about you but every time I need to use the Coutts app to transfer money it’s always down! And I can’t be bothered to speak to Coutts24 just to move money.
Is the Coutts app just a reskinned NatWest app?
lol iOS only 
No it’s not as far as I’m aware, but I’ve not got the Natwest app. They released a ‘newer’ app a couple of years ago to replace an almost useless app. But the new one is still fairly simple and not particularly easy to use. One interesting feature they have is the ability to hide balances which is quite funny.
