Investing your Plan savings

When you first joined the Plan, the contributions that the bank made were invested in a fund. This is called the default investment and, unless you decide to make your own investment choices, this is where your contributions will continue to be invested. 

Although it’s considered a good starting point for most people, it doesn’t take into account your personal circumstances. Even if you’ve already started choosing your own investments, it’s worth considering whether your Plan savings are invested in a way that is right for you.

Balancing risk & reward

All investment involves a degree of risk. It’s important that you understand, and are comfortable with, the risks you're taking before making any investment choices.

Investments that offer the potential for higher rewards often come with higher risks, which means there’s a greater chance of losing your money.

With lower-risk investments there is less chance of losing your money, but the potential for reward will usually be less.

Understanding how you feel about investment risk

The way you feel about investment risk will depend on your circumstances and, often, your personality. It’s not unusual for someone’s attitude to risk to change as they get older so it’s important to regularly review how your savings are invested. 

Your Investment guide includes a step-by-step guide to help you understand all the things you should consider before making any investment decisions.

Understanding how you feel about risk will help you to decide whether you’re comfortable making your own investment choices. 

Find out more about investing

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to making your own investment decisions. 

Your Investment guide is a great place to start to understand the basics of investing – things like what funds and lifestyle profiles are, how they work, and the type of assets they invest in. 

You can also find out more about the different types of investments, the relationship between risk and reward and other considerations to think about when making your own investment choices. 

Responsible investing

Our goal is to help people save for their retirement, creating brighter financial futures. We also want to help create the kind of world people want to retire in. Find out how considering environmental, social and governance issues in the investment process, and engaging with the companies we invest in, helps towards this goal. You can find out more on our Responsible investing page.