Investment Performance
Andrew Milligan – Independent Member
The IGC is pleased with the overall performance of the main funds offered to Standard Life customers. They continue to closely monitor your funds and fund managers to ensure that they meet required levels of service.
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Value for money indicator
Why we gave this score
Investment performance
The performance of the main funds offered to Standard Life customers has been reasonable when compared with benchmarks, funds offered by competitors and inflation over the medium term.
Our score also reflects the performance of the with-profits funds, and the work in hand to improve long-term performance, for example, through strategic asset allocation changes and fund redesign.
Investment services
Our score reflects a regular assessment of the extensive reports from the governance teams. Standard Life’s principles, framework and processes used to ensure asset managers and funds for customers are fit for purpose.
- Past performance of most of the main default funds is good
- The Sustainable Multi Asset range of funds is performing well
- Work has started to improve some older funds which do not compare positively with more modern competitors
- The design of your modern fund should deliver decent returns for when you retire
- The process to deal with poorly performing funds has been improved
- Most with-profit funds have performed well against inflation over the long-term
- Annual guarantees can also be a useful feature of many with-profit funds
- The design of the main default funds is suitable for their purposes
- Several reviews of older funds have begun which should lead to better outcomes
- All funds and fund managers are regularly and closely examined, and actions taken where necessary
- If you do not choose a default fund, then there is a wide range of suitable alternatives
- The process to deal with poorly performing funds has been improved
Some additional information
Challenges
In order to improve the value for money that customers receive, we set specific challenges to address areas that could be improved. Below is an update on the challenges we set Standard Life for 2024:
- Fully Met: Improved medium-term performance of the Sustainable Multi-Asset (SMA) family of funds.
- Fully Met: Reviewed multi-asset Managed and My Folio ranges of funds.
- Fully Met: Improved processes to quickly identify and replace poorly performing funds.
- Fully Met: Take steps to introduce exposure to private market assets with the aim to doing so in early 2025.