In order to establish an IM account we follow the following steps:

• If we have not previously opened an account with a particular IM company we will ask them to complete our ‘due diligence’ questionnaire. A member of our account opening team will contact the relevant person at the IM to confirm where and to whom the questionnaire should be sent.
• When the IM has completed the questionnaire to our satisfaction, or has previously passed our due diligence checks, we will send out our investment agreement form for completion. This agreement needs to be signed by an authorised signatory on behalf of the IM before it is forwarded to our pension investor for signing.
• When our investment agreement is returned, correctly signed by all parties we will be in a position to complete and return the IM’s account opening forms. These will be completed subject to the relevant the applicable Suffolk Life investment agreement.
• Once the IM has received back their account opening forms and have notified us the account is open we will be in a position to transfer funds to the account. The amount to be transferred will be decided by our pension investor or their financial adviser. Please note the IM will need to inform us of bank details for the account so that funds can be transferred electronically.

Global agreements
We have established a number of global agreement forms with IMs. This means that a header agreement of how the applicable Suffolk Life accounts are to be managed is agreed and signed removing the need for our tri-partite agreement to be completed for each account opening request. Each individual account opened with the IM is then subject to the provisions made by the global agreement.

If we determine that we will be opening a sufficient number of accounts with an IM, we will contact them to see whether the IM is willing and able to establish a global agreement.

Account signatories
Depending on the IM account being established the authorised signatories of Suffolk Life are the sole signatories of the IM account. The pension investor, and on occasion, their financial adviser are given third party authority on the account.