Your Contributions

Notes

1. From 1 November 2017, unless you opt out, your contributions will be paid by the Bank. Your salary will be reduced by an equivalent amount and, as you only pay National Insurance Contributions (NICs) on the salary you receive, no NICs are paid on the amount sacrificed. Therefore even though your salary is lower, your take-home pay will show a slight increase. More details are given in the ?Scheme contribution changes: your guide? document. See Scheme Documents.
2. “Salary” is your annual rate of basic salary or wages from the Bank, including permanent allowances excluding overtime, bonuses, shift premium and similar payments. If you are paying contributions by salary sacrifice, it will be your "reference salary" which also includes the salary sacrificed. If you are on seconded service abroad, your salary for these purposes will be your notional UK salary or wages including pensionable permanent allowances as calculated by the Bank (except that if you are on service abroad in a country in which the Bank must make compulsory pension contributions to a pension arrangement in that country the Bank will not pay contributions to the Scheme as well).
3. Your contributions will cease when you retire or when you leave the Bank.
4. Additional Voluntary Contributions
   As a member of the Scheme you can increase your retirement benefits by choosing to pay additional voluntary contributions to the Scheme, either on a regular basis or as a one-off lump sum. (The Bank and the Trustees are able to decide the terms on which AVCs can be paid).
5. Maximum Contributions
   The total contributions paid by you into the Scheme and any other contributions you make to any other pension arrangements will be limited to 100% of your gross earnings in each tax year. This limit only restricts your contributions and does not apply to any contributions made by the Bank, other than those paid by salary sacrifice.
6. The Annual Allowance
   From 6 April 2006 an Annual Allowance was introduced by the government to replace previous limits on contributions that could be made into pension arrangements. You can now contribute as much as you want to your pension arrangements (subject to the limit ‘Maximum Contributions’ described above). However, any contributions in excess of the Annual Allowance (£40,000 in 2017/18) may be subject to a tax charge. For this comparison against the Annual Allowance, contributions will include:

   – Contributions paid by you or the Bank into your Member’s Account

   – AVCs paid by you into your Member’s Account

   – Any other contributions you are making to any other pension arrangements

   It is your responsibility (not the Bank) to check if you are exceeding this allowance.