When you access your pension savings, these will normally become ‘crystallised.’ Any of your pension pot that hasn’t been crystallised will be uncrystallised.
There are several ways of taking your pension savings. More often than not, if you’ve taken money from your savings, they’ll be crystallised. Additionally, where you have the option to take only part of your pension savings, the money that you don’t take will normally remain uncrystallised.
For example, if you choose to take a tax-free lump sum and as a result some of your savings from your pension pot are moved to a flexi-access drawdown account, the money in your pension pot would stay uncrystallised, but the money in your flexi-access drawdown account would be crystallised.
People’s Pension doesn’t accept crystallised transfers in. If you’re wanting to transfer to us, make sure your pension savings are uncrystallised.
You can transfer crystallised funds between other schemes, but they must be transferred on a like-for-like basis. For example, if you’re transferring a drawdown, it would need to be transferred to another drawdown. You can normally also use your crystallised drawdown funds to purchase a lifetime annuity.