Abstract

The current macro-economic situation and high inflation has made individuals concerned whether their savings and pensions will be adequate for a comfortable retirement income. This concern is compounded by the fact that there is no consolidated view available to them across all the pension plans and no simple way to trace “lost” pensions.

The UK government has acknowledged this issue and formalized its intentions to deliver pensions dashboards through the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and The Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022. This legislation sets out the timeline and the requirement for pension providers and schemes to connect to the pension dashboard. It empowers Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) to convene the Pension dashboard program. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) will support pension providers and schemes to comply with the regulation.

Introduction to Pension Dashboard

Pension dashboard is a new online platform or digital service, which will transform the way individuals access their pension details. It will allow them to view all their pension information consolidated in one place, including state pension. All eligible pension schemes will be connected to the dashboard on a real-time basis. The pension providers will be responsible for maintaining and storing customer information and sending this information to the pension dashboard for display.

The Pensions dashboard will be developed and maintained by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) and hosted on the MoneyHelper website and is planned to be operational by 31st Oct 2026

Individuals

Individuals will be able to see their consolidated pension information. This will benefit them by increasing their understanding of their pension information and helping them to estimate their total retirement income, get expert financial advice, make informed decisions, and trace and connect their lost pension pots.

Pension providers

When an individual accesses the pension dashboard, each connected pension provider will try to identify if this individual is a member of their scheme. They will use pre-defined matching criteria like Name, Date of Birth, National Insurance number etc. to find a match. If a match is found, they will return the individual’s pension information to the pension dashboard where it will be displayed for the individual to view. The information sent by them will include details of pension arrangement, details of organization administering the pension arrangement, estimate of annual retirement income etc.

Preparation by pension providers

Pension providers and their tech providers must ensure the quality, Integrity, and availability of their customer information. They must identify the data communication layer and establish and test the connectivity to the pension dashboards. They must also assess their current archiving policy and ensure that all old Pension accounts stored with them are available to the Pension Finder service.

They must then move on to providing value additions to their customers.

Value-adds by Pension Providers

Pension providers will have the option of creating their own pension dashboards by registering it as a Qualifying Pensions Dashboard Service (QPDS) with the FCA and complying with the relevant regulations and MaPS design standards. The QPDS will not store any customer data and will use the ‘Pension Finder’ Service to fetch customer data from other Pension providers.

Pension providers must utilize this opportunity to provide value-add to their customers. Creating a user-friendly and feature-rich pension dashboard will enable differentiation, customer satisfaction and customer retention. Since individuals will be able to choose which dashboard they want to use, pension providers must leverage this initiative and go beyond the published guidelines to create a state-of-the-art dashboard with AI which can propose additional products based on customer preferences.

Way Forward

To comply with the guidelines within the stipulated timelines, providers must prioritize undertaking a detailed analysis of current state processes to identify gaps and draw up an action plan. This could entail transformation of the data, cleanup of data, new processes to capture additional data, new security features or new processes to make mainframe data API-readable..

To provide value-added services to customers, Pension providers must begin conceptualizing and designing their own dashboards, complete with top-notch features and AI to provide an enhanced, intelligent, comprehensive, and intuitive pensions dashboard to their customers.

References

https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/trustees/contributions-data-and-transfers/dashboards-guidance

https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/programme-timeline/

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pensions-dashboards-consultation-on-the-draft-pensions-dashboards-regulations-2022/pensions-dashboards-consultation-on-the-draft-pensions-dashboards-regulations-2022#annex-a

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pensions-dashboards-consultation-on-the-draft-pensions-dashboards-regulations-2022/pensions-dashboards-consultation-on-the-draft-pensions-dashboards-regulations-2022#chapter-7

https://www.aegon.co.uk/adviser/knowledge-centre/technical-zone/other-useful-information/pension-dashboards#accordion-ea472b0577-item-c1cef7a777