Transfer of pension providers or schemes: Acquiring provider

Overview

Purpose

When pension assets are moved between pension providers or schemes, the changes need to be reflected in the pension dashboards ecosystem so that a dashboard user has continuous access to their information. Similarly, when a pension provider or scheme changes their route to connection (for example, changing integrated service provider (ISP)), their dashboards responsibilities will be met by another organisation.

This journey allows acquiring providers the ability to manage and execute the movement of dashboards responsibilities between parties connected to the PDP ecosystem. This process only covers the movement of whole or part of a pension provider or scheme and does not include individual transfers.

Who completes this step

• primary business contact

Read the full list of roles and responsibilities.

Before you begin

The ceding connected entity should have already started the data migration or transfer with the acquiring connected entity.

The ceding connected entity could be the ceding pension provider or scheme or a third-party administrator (TPA). The acquiring connected entity could be you, acquiring the pension provider or scheme or an ISP receiving the schemes or members being transferred.

Currently, this process does not support transfer of schemes between 2 clients of the same ISP. These scenarios must be managed through ISP-specific administrative processes.

It’s important to identify what type of transfer is taking place. Each business scenario leads to 2 types of transfer that can be reflected in the pensions dashboards ecosystem:

1. Movement of a pension provider or scheme between connected entities: Each pension provider or scheme is represented by a holdername GUID or multiple holdername GUIDs that are connected to the pensions dashboards ecosystem. These need to be transferred from the ceding provider. Business scenarios that fall within this category may include a change of integrated service provider (ISP), change of third-party administrator (TPA), or acquisition of a pension provider. For these scenarios, you can refer to section 2.1 below. You may be receiving part of a pension provider or scheme. Review section 2.2 below for more information on how the ceding provider should prepare the data for this scenario.
2. Movement of an individual/member between pension providers or schemes: Each member asset is represented by a pension identifier (PEI) and is stored and managed by the connected entity. These are not provided to the PDP ecosystem via the connection portal. Business scenarios that fall within this category may include member-initiated requests for consolidation, member-initiated requests for transfer to a new scheme, or movement of members in a scheme to a master trust or purchase of books. For these scenarios, refer our guidance on individual transfers (to be published).

2.1. Scenarios that involve the movement of one or more pension provider or scheme.

Before you begin

Before you start the connection portal journey, ensure you have:

• Identified the pension provider or schemes being transferred in accordance with what has been agreed with the ceding provider or administrator.
• Obtained the ceding connected entity’s PDP account number from the ceding connected entity. The ceding connected entity can find this on their connection portal homepage or on the ‘Pension providers and schemes transfers’ page.
• Obtained the transfer code provided by the ceding provider. This acts as a one-time passcode (OTP) for the transfer request.
• Obtained the details of the transferring schemes from the ceding provider which may be provided as a CSV file. For each pension provider and scheme, you should have:
  • The holdername GUID or GUIDs: This is a unique ID used to reference pension provider and scheme records. Note: this will be called ‘Old holdername GUID’ on your CSV file as the acquiring provider.
  • The regulator number: This is a number generated by the regulators assigned to a pension provider or scheme.
  • The regulator body: This is the body that regulates pension providers or schemes which will be the FCA or TPR.
  • The transfer date: This is the date on which the legal responsibility for representing the pension provider or scheme transfers to the acquiring provider. This may be the date that any relevant pension assets are transferred.
• You need to populate these remaining fields for each pension provider or scheme:
  • The new holdername GUID. This will be the holdername GUID you will use as a replacement of the holdername GUID used by the ceding provider.
  • The pension provider or scheme name. This must be the same for each entry if there are multiple holdernames for a pension provider or scheme.
  • The view endpoint URL to associate the holdername GUID with.
  • The PAT refresh endpoint to associate the holdername GUID with.

Each of the records and data fields provided will be validated against what the ceding provider has selected for transfer.

What you need to do in this step

1. Sign in to the connection portal and click on the ‘Pension providers and schemes’ tab in the navigation menu.
2. Click on ‘Go to transfers’ in the ‘Transfers’ card.
3. Click on the 'Transfer in' button under the 'Transfer in pension providers and schemes' card.
4. Read the information to ensure you have the necessary details to hand before clicking on ‘Continue’.
5. Enter the ceding provider’s PDP account number.
6. Enter the transfer code provided by the ceding provider.
7. Enter a description for the transfer. This is for your own reference and will not be validated or shared with anyone.
8. Upload your CSV file containing the relevant pensions provider and scheme records. This file must be formatted as CSV and no larger than 1000 records or 25MB. The file will be validated to ensure all the pension records match those that have already been selected by the ceding organisation. The CSV uploads from the acquiring and transferring providers must match exactly, otherwise the acquiring provider must correct the error and replace the file to proceed.
9. If there are any errors in the data matching, then you need to correct them and replace the file to proceed. You can download the results to view the errors.
10. Check the details you have entered before clicking 'Confirm and submit'.

Transfer timing and lead time

The minimum lead time for transfer date is 1 day.

The transfer will be executed in the PDP system at approximately 3am UK time.

You need to account of the activities that take place outside of the connection portal when determining how long the overall process will take.

What happens next

The transfer request is now complete and will be processed on the transfer dates provided. This means that the transferring pension provider and scheme holdername GUIDs will be associated with the acquiring providers endpoints from that date onwards.

How to format the data in your CSV file 

The data in your CSV file must follow the following format: 

• Regulator body: ‘FCA’ or ‘TPR’. Character limit of 3. No special characters allowed. 
• Regulator number: Alphanumeric. No character limit. No special characters allowed. 
• Old holdername GUID: Globally unique identifier (GUID) made up of 36 characters. It uses the characters 0 to 9 and lowercase a to f to create a string of 32 hexadecimal characters grouped as 8-4-4-4-12 and separated by 4 hyphens.
• New holdername GUID: Globally unique identifier (GUID) made up of 36 characters. It uses the characters 0 to 9 and lowercase a to f to create a string of 32 hexadecimal characters grouped as 8-4-4-4-12 and separated by four hyphens.  
• Transfer year: YYYY. Character limit of 4. No special characters allowed. 
• Transfer month: MM. Character limit of 2. No special characters allowed. 
• Transfer day: DD. Character limit of 2. No special characters allowed. 
• Pension provider or scheme name: Alphanumeric. No character limit. Special characters are allowed. 

Error codes for the uploaded pension provider and scheme data

If there are errors in the data you have provided in the CSV file upload, you will get one or more of the following error messages in the results file:

• scheme details not matched
• regulator body error
• regulator number error
• old holdername error
• new holdername duplicate error
• new holdername error
• transfer date error
• pension provider or scheme name error
• PAT refresh endpoint error
• view endpoint error
• pension provider or scheme status error

Scheme details not matched

This can appear for the following reasons:

• the combination of regulator body and regulator number are incorrect

Regulator body error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• regulator body missing
• regulator body incorrect

Regulator number error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• regulator number missing
• regulator number incorrect

Old holdername error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• the old holdername GUID is missing
• the old holdername GUID does not match

New holdername duplicate error

This can appear for the following reason:

• the new holdername GUID is not unique within the ecosystem. To resolve, you should change the holdername GUID.

If the acquiring provider has already registered the pension provider or scheme being transferred, the new holdername GUID can be the same as the holdername GUID already associated with the pension provider or scheme.

New holdername error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• the new holdername is not correctly formatted as a GUID
• the new holdername is missing

Transfer date error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• transfer date is missing
• transfer date is incorrectly formatted
• transfer date is not sufficiently in the future

Pension provider or scheme name error

This can appear for the following reason:

• the pension provider or scheme name is missing

View endpoint error

This can appear for the following reason:

• the view endpoint is missing
• the view endpoint does not match the view endpoint held for the organisation

PAT refresh endpoint error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• the PAT refresh endpoint is missing
• the PAT refresh endpoint does not match the PAT refresh endpoint held for the organisation

Pension provider or scheme status error

This can appear for the following reasons:

• the pension provider or scheme status is pending
• the pension provider or scheme status is approved

2.2. Transferring part of a scheme

Some scenarios call for the movement of 'part' of a scheme which refers to a category of members within it. A common example is having 'Defined Benefit (DB)' and 'Defined Contributions (DC)' categories to separate members in the same scheme with different benefit structures. If only the DB part of the scheme is being transferred, the ceding provider needs to create a new holdername GUID for that part of the scheme. You or the ceding provider do not need a new registration code from the regulator if the newly generated holdername GUID is associated with the same regulated entity (regulator number).

For receiving only 'part' of a scheme, you must follow the steps outlined under 2.1, the ceding provider must ensure that they are only transferring the holdername GUID which covers the part of the pension provider or scheme you are due to receive.

Viewing and amending a transfer request once it’s been submitted

Once you have submitted your transfer in request as the acquiring provider, you will find the request in the 'Transfer requests' table in the Transfers landing page. You can cancel the request before starting the transfer.

Each request will have one of the following statuses:

• Pending: This is where the ceding connected entity has submitted a transfer request and you as the acquiring connected entity have submitted a complementary, confirmation of the request. The request will sit in a 'Pending' state until the transfer dates for all the transferring pension providers or schemes has been passed.
• In progress: This is where a transfer has begun but not all pension providers and schemes have transferred yet.
• Complete: All the transfer dates for the transferring pension providers or schemes within the request have been passed.

To view the details of the transfer request, you can click on the reference number highlighted in the transfer request table. Here, you will be able to cancel the transfer request. After confirming that you wish to cancel, the acquiring connected entity will be notified.

Changelog

Last updated:12/03/2026