YOUR SNPS PENSION PLAN if you joined Shell after 30 June, 2013

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1 YOUR SNPS PENSION PLAN if you joined Shell after 30 June, 2013 Welcome! You are a participant in the gross SNPS pension plan which applies to pensionable salary up to the fiscal upper limit permitted by the Tax Authority. The SNPS plan is an Individual Defined Contribution Pension Plan. Under this plan, you accrue your own pension capital by paying in monthly pension contributions that are invested at your expense and risk. Ultimately, you use this capital to purchase a pension payment (pension benefit) from an external insurer. The plan also includes certain risk cover. In order to familiarise you with the pension plan, we have provided brief details of its most important features below. Do this now! 1. Set up your account at mijnsnps.nl You will receive more information on the participants portal mijnsnps.nl ( My SNPS ) within five working days. This information is sent to your work address at Shell. The portal contains such information as your personal details and the Life cycle profiles you can choose from. We use your responses to five questions to define your risk profile. The default setting is that SNPS sets your Life cycle profile to Neutral. You can adjust your Life cycle profile to your risk profile. To do this, set up your account at mijnsnps.nl as soon as possible. 2. Do you wish to transfer a previous pension? If you have accrued a pension with a previous employer, you can transfer the value of that pension to SNPS. This is known as value transfer. You can do this at mijnsnps.nl. You will receive a proposal some time later. This proposal will tell you how much pension capital can be transferred to SNPS. This proposal is subject to confirmation. If you accept the proposal then the pension capital will be transferred and invested. SNPS is dependent on the information provided by previous pension administrators. This means the whole process may take several months to complete. 3. Are you cohabiting? If so, under certain conditions your partner will be entitled to a partner s pension if you die. A partner s pension is income that your surviving partner receives after your death. If you are cohabiting (i.e. you are living with a partner but are not married) then you will have to register your partner with SNPS. We will need a copy of a cohabitation agreement endorsed by a civil-law notary or an extract authenticated by a civil-law notary. Your cohabiting partner will not be entitled to a partner s pension unless he or she is registered with us. Do this later! There are certain events that affect your pension, such as marriage, commencing cohabitation or a registered partnership, divorcing or becoming occupationally disabled (i.e. unfit for work) or wishing to utilise one of the options offered by the pension plan. For more information, please go to mijnsnps.nl or else contact the service desk. NB.: If you live abroad then SNPS will not be automatically informed about changes in your personal circumstances. So make sure you always inform SNPS about any such changes.

2 What you need to know about your pension During the time you work for Shell, a pension contribution will be placed at your disposal each month. You invest this contribution in order to buy a pension payment (= pension benefit) on your retirement date. Together, the contribution and the investment result make up the total sum that you ultimately use to buy a pension payment from a pension insurer. The amount of pension these contributions will buy cannot be predicted in advance. However, the amount of pension payment you will receive will primarily depend on the contribution, the investment results and the interest rate at the time you buy the pension. How high is the contribution? Your employer pays a high contribution. The contribution depends on your age and is calculated on the pension base salary. The pension base salary is the pensionable salary minus a sum on which no pension is accrued, this sum being deducted because later on you will also receive a statutory old age pension (the AOW pension). You can find the table of contributions at snps.nl. The contribution increases as you get older. This is because the period until your retirement date is getting shorter all the time, which means the contribution has less time to yield returns. Who pays the contribution? You pay 2% of the pension base salary, with your employer paying the rest. Premiums are also paid for insuring the risks of occupational disability and of dying whilst in employment. The monthly contribution will still be paid during the period that you in the unlikely event have become (partially) occupationally disabled, which means that your pension capital will continue. All these contributions and premiums are paid by your employer in full. Costs As a member, you pay 2% of the pension base salary amount. Apart from this contribution, you also pay the investment-related costs. These costs are deducted from the value of your investments. When deciding which investment options to offer, we tried to keep these costs as low as possible. For more information on the costs, please go to mijnsnps.nl.

3 Income forecast The plan is based on the provision of information on the income you can expect to receive once you have retired. Clear information on this can be found on the participants portal, mijnsnps.nl. As stated, your contribution will be invested. Investing means taking risks. This is why investments need to be spread across the different investment categories (including shares and bonds). This is taken into account when putting together the Life cycle profiles that you can select from. Age styling If you are investing in the Offensive or Defensive Life cycle profiles then you can select one of the options provided by SNPS for adjusting these Life cycle profiles. This is known as age styling. Please go to mijnsnps.nl for more information. The amount of pension you receive can t be predicted Life cycle profiles There are 3 Life cycle profiles: Offensive, Neutral and Defensive. The three Life cycle profiles have different characteristics. For instance, the Offensive Life cycle profile invests more in shares than the Defensive Life cycle profile does. Each Life cycle profile consists of 3 Life cycle portfolios. The older you get, the less that shares are invested in. The sensitivity of your investments to the rise and fall of interest rates increases. Since the purchase of your pension payment is sensitive to these same interest rate trends, this will lead to smaller fluctuations in the income you can expect to receive later. This means that your contribution is solely invested with the aim of generating your expected pension income at a later date. The default approach is for SNPS to invest your contribution using the Neutral Life cycle profile. You can adjust your investments to bring them into line with your risk profile or decide to deviate from your profile. For more information on the composition of your Life cycle profiles and underlying Life cycle portfolios, please go to mijnsnps.nl. Your risk profile Before your contribution can be invested, you need to find out what your risk profile is. You can do this by answering a short questionnaire at mijnsnps.nl. The answers reveal how much risk you are willing to run in the investment of your contributions. You yourself are responsible for the answers you give here. If after a period of time you change your mind about the risks you wish to run then you can fill in the questionnaire again and re-submit it. The contributions are invested at your own expense and risk. The value of your investments may rise or fall. This is known as investment risk. What s more, the rates that pension insurers use to buy a pension for you at the time you retire can change over time, for instance because average life expectancy rises more than expected. This is known as longevity risk. There is also what is known as interest rate risk. When (on your retirement date) you convert your accrued capital into a pension payment you are dependent on the interest rate level on that date. You bear these risks yourself until the date on which you retire. However, these risks are taken into account as much as possible when putting together the Life cycle profiles. After this date, the risk lies with the insurer that you buy your pension from. A pension from the insurer of your choice About three months before your retirement date, you will receive a letter from SNPS that sets out the procedure relating to your pension commencement. This letter includes an estimate of the pension capital that you will receive on your retirement date to buy your pension with. You can select the insurer you wish to buy your pension from at snps.metpensioen.nl. The default setting is that SNPS sets your Life cycle profile to Neutral. You can use the findings from your risk profile questionnaire to opt for another Life cycle profile. Please go to mijnsnps.nl to state your preference. Shell net pension plan If your pensionable salary exceeds the fiscal upper limit, you can participate in the Shell net pension plan. This voluntary plan makes optimum advantage of the possibilities provided by the tax legislation to save for pension from your net income. Please go to snps.nl for more information.

4 If you want to know what your age for AOW is, consult svb.nl/int/en/ Pensions and the government The AOW (state old age pension) age You receive your pension from your pension fund next to the State retirement pension (AOW). You receive AOW from the government. From 2013 onwards, the retirement age for AOW increases to 67 years in stages. You can check what your age for AOW is, via svb.nl/int/en, the website of the Dutch Social Insurance Bank. AOW and living/working abroad Have you lived and worked outside the Netherlands? If so, you may receive less AOW. Please go to for more information. ANW (General Surviving Dependants Act) If you die, your partner and/or children may be entitled to a statutory benefit from the government. This is regulated by the General Surviving Dependants Act (the ANW). Under a number of conditions your surviving partner may qualify for an ANW benefit. The SVB (the Dutch Social Insurance Bank) administers the ANW on the government s behalf. Please go to svb.nl/anw for more information.

5 What does the SNPS pension plan offer you? Old age pension On your chosen retirement date, you use the capital you have accrued up to that date to buy an old age pension from the pension insurer of your choice. During the pension accrual period, no income tax is levied on the value of your pension capital (tax on imputed return on investment in box 3 of your Dutch tax return). In other words, you do not need to declare this value on your income tax return. From the date you retire, you will receive a pension payment from your chosen pension insurer. You will pay income tax on this. This pension payment ceases upon your death. Surviving dependants pension Should you die during your employment then any partner and/ or children you have will receive a surviving dependants pension. Your partner will receive a life-long partner s pension, as well as a temporary partner s pension up to your retirement date in order to compensate for the absence of state old age pension. Your children will receive an orphan s pension up to their 18th birthday. Children who study are entitled to an orphan s pension for longer (up to september following their 24 th birthday). Occupational disability Have you been ill for more than two years, and has the UWV public employment service declared you to be partially disabled (i.e. unfit for work)? If so, be sure to tell SNPS, as you will then be entitled to receive occupational disability benefit from SNPS. What s more, your pension contribution will continue to be paid during the period in which you are partially disabled. You will then be entitled to have your own pension contribution waived. This means that if you become partially disabled, your pension contribution will be paid for you. Retiring The target retirement age at this moment is 67 years old. You may retire between the ages of 55 and 67, but with your manager s permission you may also choose to defer your retirement (up to the age of 70 years old). There are several ways in which you can adjust your pension to your personal wishes and needs. You have the following options: you can retire early you can retire later you can take semi-retirement you can vary the amount of your pension you can use your pension capital to buy an old age pension only; alternatively, you can use it to buy both an old age pension and a partner s pension. Your personal circumstances will determine whether you wish to use one of these options. You can calculate the financial outcomes of the different options yourself at mijnsnps.nl. The amount of your pension must comply with the applicable tax rules. This is why these rules are taken into account when implementing your chosen option. For more information, please go to mijnsnps.nl or else contact the service desk by phone on working days from 8.30 a.m. to p.m. CET by calling +31-(0)

6 Like to know more? Any questions? Once a year, you will receive a Uniform Pension Statement (UPO), which tells you how much you have accrued for your pension so far. You can view this UPO at mijnsnps.nl. Now you have read this brochure, if you still have questions about your pension with SNPS then please go to snps.nl where you will find details of the most important features along with answers to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). You can also your question to snps@achmea.nl. You can also contact us by phone from 8.30 a.m. to p.m. CET by calling +31-(0) Don t forget - we re here to help! Complaints procedure If you have a complaint about the implementation of your pension plan then you can activate SNPS s complaints procedure. For further information, please read the Fund s Constitution, the full text of which you can download from along with information on the complaints procedure. The SNPS s board has outsourced the pension plan s administration and asset management activities to Syntrus Achmea. However, the SNPS board remains ultimately responsible for the correct and timely implementation of the pension plan. This brochure is a simplified account of SNPS s pension plan. No rights may be derived from this brochure. The pension regulations contain the official legal text of the pension plan, which text prevails. You may download the pension regulations from snps.nl. The companies in which Royal Dutch Shell plc holds direct or indirect shareholdings are individual legal entities, each of which has its own identity. In this brochure, the collective term Shell is used to designate the various Shell employers and joint ventures affiliated with the Shell Netherlands Pension Fund Foundation (SNPS). April 216 mijnsnps.nl