Corporate pensions are those which are established by an employer, and are usually, although not always, those to which employers will make contributions on behalf of their employees.
There are two main types of pension schemes available, these being defined benefit and defined contribution.
Defined benefit schemes were designed to provide an income in retirement based on a percentage of salary earned depending on length of service. Most new pensions that are established are done so on the defined contribution basis, and this is in part due to the massive funding requirements for defined benefit schemes, and the huge funding shortfall in existing schemes.
Defined contributions schemes are those where your contributions determine the fund in the pension ‘pot’ at retirement. In many cases, people will ultimately retire on an income considerably less than they had either hoped for or anticipated.