The data shows that at 31.3.18 defaults varied widely in terms of number of members invested, from Nest, holding almost 3 million active and 3 million non-active members, to the Ensign Retirement Plan, the master trust for the seafaring industry, which has just 950 active members.

Nest, The People’s Pension and Now: Pensions between them have over 6m active members. Of the 17 other providers that gave us data on member numbers, only Smart Pension, Legal & General, TPT Retirement Solutions and Standard Life have master trusts with more than 100,000 members.

There has been much commentary about how providers will need scale to survive and thrive in the newly regulated master trust world. Some set up for auto-enrolment may look to exit the market, but robust smaller schemes in existence since before then were set up for more sustainable reasons and will be more likely to remain. Having achieved Master Trust Assurance Framework accreditation is another indicator of schemes likely to remain in the market.