Standard Life has said it will drop drawdown charges as it prepares for the new pension freedom rules to kick in.


The firm announced the removal of the charges currently applied to its flexible drawdown product.
From April the one off set up charge of £208 and a one off early depletion charge of £312 will be removed, allowing advisers to access the full flexibilities through either wrap or their standalone Sipp product.
David Tiller, Standard Life head of adviser platform propositions, said: "The impact of the pension freedoms goes well beyond provider and adviser operational readiness. This legislation will transform the UK long-term savings market.
"Instead of being seen as inaccessible and opaque, pensions are about to become consumers' long-term savings vehicle of choice. Our role is to make it easy for advisers to access the flexibility, which is why we've decided to drop these additional drawdown charges."

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He declared Standard Life as "fully prepared for the new pensions freedoms".
He said: "We've worked incredibly hard to make sure we can deal with additional demand to access drawdown."
The demands of advisers and drawdown customers are well understood by the firm, he said, due to more than ten years' experience of managing Sipp investments.
He claimed it had supported more clients in drawdown than any other provider.
Mr Tiller said: "From the feedback we've received we know that it's the fundamentals that matter; such as the reliability of income payments, the speed at which we can pay withdrawals on the day the client chooses and the quality of reporting to advisers and clients."
The Standard Life Wrap proposition is also being developed to support advisers to deliver their own specialist 'in retirement' service, the firm added.