Shell Pension ready for the future

With the introduction of the new pension system in 2023 (delayed by one year), or in 2027 at the latest, pension providers have to choose between one out of two prospective schemes. Shell Pension is already successfully implementing one of those schemes within its SNPS pension framework.

If you joined Shell on or after 1 July 2013, you are participating in the SNPS (gross) defined contribution scheme. This offers, as one of the two future schemes under the Pension agreement, an personal pension account from which the accrued capital is converted into a lifelong pension on the retirement date. You have the option to take more or less investment 

No returns without risk. And without returns there is no solid pension. So if you wish for a healthy pension, a (well thought-out) risk is part and parcel of that. You can choose which Life cycle profile suits you best: defensive, neutral or offensive. In all three Life cycle profiles, a large part is invested in so-called marketable securities, such as shares and higher-risk bonds. With a defensive profile, 70% is invested in marketable securities for a longer period of time. . With a neutral profile, this will be 90% and with an offensive profile even up to 100%. In all profiles, risks are gradually reduced the closer you get to your retirement date. By then, the proportion of marketable securities in the life cycle will decrease in favour of safe bonds.

You decide on a life cycle based on your pension goal and stage of life. To make this choice as simple as possible, both the risks and possible returns of the 3 Life Ccycle Profiles are mapped out at my-Shell pension.

Ten years before you retire, you make a preliminary choice for either a fixed pension or the Collective Variable Pension (CVP). Are you opting for a fixed pension? In that case you transfer your saved pension capital to an insurer on your retirement date. This company will then pay out your pension. At that point in time there is certainty about the amount, but benefits will not be adjusted to, for instance, price increases. Are you opting for CVP? Then we gradually convert your pension into variable pension entitlements at SNPS. Your pension capital remains invested with SNPS and is adjusted annually based on the results that have been achieved. There is no certainty regarding the height of your benefits, but because your capital remains invested, you can continue to profit from future returns.

If you opt for the so-called Collective Variable Pension (CVP) - from the age of 58 - you continue to invest after you retire, with the chance of seeing your pension benefits grow after your retirement date. More than 90 per cent of the SNPS participants do just that. In 2020 the results were not all that bad. Despite the extremely difficult investment year, participants in the CVP found that their benefits could be increased. 

In view of the introduction of the new pension system in 2027, the government has made 2020 the starting point for transposing the Pension agreement into new legislation and regulations. Because SNPS in its current set-up is already to a great extent future proof, we are actively involved in this. Want to know more about what will change in the Dutch pension system? To visit our renewed page about the Pension Agreement click here.