Hi, Here's one for all you accountant types.
I have a Final Salary Pension scheme which has long since been closed, and was only running for the first while of my very first job.

I now have a much larger scheme on the go with my current employer and am looking to consolodate into one pension fund. (For simplicity and for ease of management)

I have a settlement quotation and am happy with the figure they are quoting.
My question is, can I have the Final Salary fund paid into my bank account and then put 70% into my new fund and hang on to the other 30% ?
Or will I have to transfer it all from one scheme to another ?

Your help is much appreciated.

I'd not call myself a "guru", but having it paid into your account isn't going to be acceptable until you've reached retirement age and then you're taking it as your lump sum.

Stoner will be along shortly however as a rule I understood that you should never re-invest your final salary scheme. I would have thought the benefits from that will not be matched by your new one.
Unless you are of pensionable age how would you have it paid into your bank account? Even if you were you can only take out a proportion of it as a lump sum.

leave it where it is, and also any future pension schemes

eggs/baskets

It's only 5 grand, TBH i have better uses for it in the short term till my wife manages to get back to work than it sitting there for the next 40 years.

That may sound a little short sighted, but it was an option I was mulling over.
The other options are to take out small loan, which will require paying back starting now.
This money however is useless for 40yrs ?

Keep it or put it into a Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP.

http://www.h-l.co.uk/

I'd be wary of transferring from a final salary scheme and I'd make sure I got a least 3 sets of advice (including figures and maths that I really did understand) from IFAs (Independent Finacial Advisers).

Ask whoever is doing it to show you how much commision they are making on the deal (as I understand it they must tell you)

Do some basic maths – £100,000 in a money pot pension (ie not final salary) = about £4300 a year increasing with RPI final salary pension (male taking pension at age 65, no tax free cash).

Re one scheme – simplicty, ease of mangement – look up Equitable life pension victim on google.

Can second H&L – however if you put your bike into a shed and came back 20 years later would you expect it to be in perfect working order etc etc – well pension funds are similar – ie it's your money and you need to manage it. see trustnet.com – but in a nutshell if you're in a fund that charges 2% management fee a year and makes 3% on the fund you may not have the pension that you expect.

It's probably something that is worth taking advice on – even on a £5k pension the tax is going to be 22 to 40% of the total. As soon as you get beyond one pension per employment, pensions get horribly complex and there's a lot to go astray.

In very broad terms
– any final salary scheme will probably be worth hanging onto; I'd check very carefully and with prudent assumptions on investment return and charges if you think you can do better by re-investing. If the previous employer is making it easy for you to get out then that should set alarm bells ringing.
– if you take money out a pension early you will almost invariably be taxed on it as the money that went into it was (usually) not taxed. That would take at least 22% off your lump sum
– if you transfer it from one scheme to another you should be able to do it tax free but you have to be careful, especially when mixing "final salary" and defined contribution pensions.

EDIT: I'm certainly not a financial guru but I know enough to know it is a horribly complex area.