13
Pensions
Increase
Pension Pay Dates
New Look Payslips & P60
Annual General Meeting 2012
Pension Authority Member Representation
Equitable Life Update
Customer Service Excellence Review
New District Offices
Parkinson ’ s UK
Overseas Pension Payments
2 4 5 6 8 9 10 10 11
HERE
Electrical Fire
Warning 14
Alaska Cruise
Report 15
Competition
Winner 18
Pension
Puzzler 18
We
Are Here To Help 20
Overseas Pension Payments
The Authority is changing its overseas payments partner
SYPA has a number of members , about 350 , who are living their retirements overseas and who receive their pension payments direct into bank accounts in their country of residence . Historically this has incurred a charge for the pensioner of £ 2.74 per transaction , ( usually per month ), and has also not always given the payee the best exchange rate because of the number of banks the current payments system uses to get the money to its eventual destination . This is something which has been beyond the control of SYPA until now . It has also sometimes taken many weeks for the Authority to receive payments back for reprocessing where an issue has led to the initial payment not landing in the recipient ’ s bank account for some reason , ( usually an error in some of the banking information used to make the payment ). In an effort to improve the transaction process , speed up returned payment processing , reducing costs to our pensioners and providing potentially better exchange rates for pensioners the Authority has entered into a business arrangement with Western Union to provide our overseas payments facility . Western Union have a network of banks in towns and cities across most other countries to land payments directly where they need to be in one transaction , speeding up the process , ensuring there are fewer organisations wanting to impose a fee and giving them the ability to offer in most cases a better rate of exchange than our pensioners might otherwise have received . They also provide us with the facility to resolve issues with erroneous bank details without the need to return the payment through the system so that the money stays in the country whilst the problem is resolved , ( usually in minutes at this end ), and the payment can then be made the same day instead of some weeks later . If you are a pensioner living abroad and being paid directly into a bank account overseas then you should not notice any change . Your pension will continue to be paid as usual into your account with the only difference being that you should be slightly better off each month as you will no longer be paying the transaction charge . The Authority is also working with Western Union to provide a better payments facility for those pensioners unable to obtain a bank account and we will provide more information on this when we have something further to report .