Smart appoints Phillip Bretnall as Senior Adviser

Experience in Asia’s retirement savings industries aligns with Smart’s global ambitions for Keystone

Smart

1/12/2025

Smart, the London-headquartered fintech transforming the global retirement savings market, is pleased to announce the appointment of Phillip Bretnall as Senior Adviser.

Phillip brings over 40 years of experience in the global retirement and pensions industry. For the past eight years he has been based in Hong Kong with HSBC, including serving as CEO of HSBC Provident Fund Trustee (Hong Kong) Limited – the largest MPF trustee in the market. He has also served as Head of Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services, Asia Pacific, as well as overseeing pensions governance for ORSO schemes under HSBC’s trusteeship.

Phillip brings deep knowledge of the region's retirement systems alongside senior regulatory and operational experience across Hong Kong, Australia and the UK, including time as COO of the UK’s largest occupational DC scheme, senior positions in outsourced pension administration, and work at The Pensions Regulator.

With a background spanning trustee leadership, regulatory oversight and digital transformation, Phillip is uniquely placed to support Smart’s growth in Asia. His experience aligns closely with Smart’s international ambitions and the continued expansion of its Keystone technology across global retirement markets.

Phillip Bretnall, Senior Adviser to Smart, said:

“I am excited to join Smart at such a pivotal time in its growth trajectory. The company’s innovative approach to retirement technology and its impressive global footprint make it a standout player in the industry. Retirement savings is an industry going through a wave of transformation across the world and Asia is at the forefront of this change. I look forward to working with Andrew and the team.”

Andrew Evans, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Smart, said:

"We are thrilled to welcome Phillip to Smart where he’ll support us in scaling our retirement saving technology offering internationally. His extensive experience in Asia will be instrumental in helping us navigate the ever-changing landscape of retirement savings and ensuring our Keystone platform remains at the cutting edge, delivering for our partners and their citizens and customers across the globe."

About Smart

Smart is a global savings and investments technology platform provider. Its mission is to transform retirement, savings and financial wellbeing, across all generations, around the world.

Smart, founded in 2014, is the company behind Keystone, the technology platform supporting retirement savers globally. Keystone is specifically designed to help governments and financial institutions (including insurers, asset managers, banks and financial advisers) deliver retirement savings and income solutions that are digital, bespoke and cost-efficient. In addition to the UK, Smart is operating in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia, with more than a million savers entrusting over £15 billion in assets on its Keystone platform.

Aquiline, Barclays, Chrysalis Investments, DWS Group, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, J.P. Morgan, Legal & General, MUFG and Natixis Investment Managers are all investors in Smart.

For media enquiries

Email: pressoffice@smart.co

THIS IS JUST USED FOR RICH TEXT STYLING

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

test for a pullquote here needs to be separate to test

Static and dynamic content editing

‍

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

alkdhjda

Bullet 1
Bullet 2 aodj afhiahf iafhpioafh paofh oapfh aopfhaofh aofhaofh aofh aofhafo ahof haf

Bullet 1 apofdhjaof haopfhoap fhaopfh aofhaofh aofhaofhaofh aofhaofh
Bullet 2

‍

FOOTNOTES

CONTRIBUTORS

More from the Innovation team

Improving the information architecture of the Smart Pension member app

In this article we explain how we used tree testing to measure and improve the effectiveness of our information architecture

Making ‘Help’ helpful with search analytics

Harry Brignull presenting at the European Parliament on Dark Patterns

A few weeks ago I was invited to give a presentation at the EU Parliament, as part of an IMCO (Internal Market and Consumer Protection) committee public hearing

Pensions are boring, and that makes them fascinating

Scheme member engagement is an industry-wide problem – this article explains how the innovation team at Smart uses the B=MAP framework to facilitate behaviour change, and how it helped us create a successful “first time sign-in” feature

Animated pension walkthrough for Smart Pension scheme members

The innovation team showcases Smart's digital take on traditional annual pension statements - technology designed to enhance member engagement

Has cutting edge tech become a hygiene factor?

Technology is a given, what people really want is the choice and competition it brings, says Smart Pension’s Head of UX Innovation Harry Brignull during UK Fintech Week

See all Design and tech articles

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Press releases