NS&I today (28 February 2018) announced that it intends to continue its commercial relationship with Matrix Capital to provide financial advisory services to the winners of the two monthly Premium Bonds £1 million jackpot prizes.
To ensure that high quality financial advice is available to each Premium Bonds £1 million jackpot winner, NS&I offers a financial advisory service provided by an advice firm. It is up to each monthly Premium Bonds jackpot winner to decide whether or not to accept the service and then for them to decide whether they wish to take up and pay for additional services provided by the advice firm.
In November 2017, NS&I began a competitive procurement process for this contract. The evaluation panel for the tender included representation from both the Personal Finance Society and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. NS&I would like to thank the PFS and CISI for agreeing to participate on the evaluation panel, allowing their expert and independent advice to inform the decision making process.
Following a thorough and competitive tender process, NS&I intends to award the contract to Matrix Capital, the present incumbent, as they scored the highest number of marks in the evaluation process, scoring over 90% of the marks available.
The existing contract to provide this service was awarded to Matrix Capital in 2014, and ends on 31 March 2018. It is intended that the new contract begins on 1 April 2018 for three years, with an option to extend for two additional 12 month periods.
NS&I would like to thank all the advice firms that submitted a bid for the re-tender of this contract and for the high quality of the submissions that we received.
Andrew Pike, Head of Intermediary Relationships at NS&I, said:
“We are pleased to confirm our intention to contract with Matrix Capital to provide Premium Bonds jackpot winners with the option of receiving high quality financial advice. This is an important service, reflected by the strong field of contenders and the excellent bids we received for the contract. I would like to thank all the financial advice firms who took part in the re-tender process.”
Robin Melley, Managing Director, Matrix Capital, said:
“We are delighted that NS&I has confirmed its intention to contract with us again, following the re-tender of the service to provide professional advice to Premium Bonds jackpot winners. We look forward to continuing to work with NS&I to deliver this important service, and remain committed to providing our clients with a personal service that creates added value, through the application of the highest standards of financial advice.”