GWRS withdrawal leaves one bidder for Personal Accounts tender

Great-West Retirement Services (Europe) has withdrawn from the competitive dialogue process for personal account scheme administration services.

The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) confirmed the firm - a consortium made up of the Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company and Canada Life Group - had withdrawn from the competitive dialogue process for scheme administration services.

It said there was now only one bidder, Tata Consultancy Services, left in the procurement process.

PADA chief executive Tim Jones said: "We wish to thank GWRS for their engagement with us. We enjoyed working with them and have benefited greatly from their input throughout the dialogue process.

"We will continue our detailed discussions with Tata Consultancy Services. They are an exceptionally strong bidder and we are making excellent progress but we need to conclude the procurement process appropriately and evaluate their proposals."

He added: "Our priority is to get value for money for personal accounts scheme members and deliver them a solution that will meet our requirements - we are very confident we can do that.

"We will provide further updates on the next steps as soon as we can."

In a statement, PADA said its priority was to get value for money for personal accounts scheme members and to agree a solution that will meet its requirements.

It said: "We are very pleased with the way our procurement process is going. TCS have responded positively to all PADA's requirements and are providing excellent evidence about how they intend to deliver these."

It added: "Throughout PADA's procurement we have provided continuous feedback to bidders on their proposals so they can take appropriate decisions, and to enable us to run an efficient process."

Hargreaves Lansdown head of pensions research Tom McPhail said the crucial test was whether the eventual contract ensures that members paid a competitive price in terms of pension charges and that the administration works efficiently.

He said: "Provided these outcomes are achieved then the bidding process will have been a success."

GWRS's withdrawal comes just weeks after Logica UK pulled out of the running for the personal accounts administration contract (PP Online, November 10).

It also comes after Danish pension fund and administration provider ATP Group decided to withdraw in October (PP Online, October 15).

PADA completed its evaluation of the pre-qualification questionnaires in April and invited short-listed suppliers to take part in the next stage of the procurement process, called competitive dialogue.

Four firms were invited to participate in competitive dialogue: Arbejdsmarkedet Tillaegspension (ATP) Group; Great-West Retirement Services (Europe); Logica UK; and Tata Consultancy Services.