The pensions industry, with the support of the Treasury, is to build a pensions dashboard prototype by March 2017.
The pensions dashboard is a platform that will allow savers to view all of their pension pots in one place, so that they can more effectively manage their retirement income.
The pensions dashboard aims to provide a link to pension pots that individuals may hold with previous employers, helping to release the estimated £400 million of retirement savings that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates are currently unclaimed.
So far, 11 pension providers have agreed to take part in the development of the working prototype, including Aviva, Aon, HSBC, LV=, Nest, Now: Pensions, People’s Pension, Royal London, Standard Life, Zurich and Willis Towers Watson. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has agreed to manage the pilot project.
The dashboard is due to be rolled out in 2019, as confirmed by the government's commitment in the Budget 2016.
Simon Kirby, economic secretary, said: “If we have better information available, we can make much more effective decisions. From choosing how much we save, to what products we use to do so.
“What the dashboard can do, is unlock a huge amount of information to inform the choices people make. How different would people’s engagement with pensions be if you could review your pension balances as part of your online banking? Or if you could change how you save into a pension at the click of a button? Or if personalised pension forecasts could be run on a mobile app?
"I’m keen to see the whole industry work together to set the minimum standards for how data is shared. We want that process to happen through the excellent voluntary collaboration we’ve seen to date. But if there are difficulties getting everyone on board, then we’ll certainly look at legislation or regulation instead."
Andrew Brem, chief digital officer at Aviva, added: “The pensions dashboard is a vital tool in increasing engagement with savings and I’m really pleased that we are working on the pilot. As an industry we need to make it as easy as possible for people to get a view of all their retirement savings in one place to help them take control of their future.”
Jon Hachett, head of corporate consulting at Hymans Robertson, said: “Delivering on the ambition of bringing everyone’s defined contribution and state pension data into a consolidated view is no small undertaking. But it’s a hugely important step in helping to solve the crippling savings crisis we face as a nation.
"For the dashboard to work effectively defined benefit (DB) pension entitlements are a key part of the jigsaw. However, integrating DB data will come with challenges. The quality of the data is hugely variable depending on a scheme’s history. There is also a question over how much it would cost to make this happen across the 6,000 DB schemes in the UK, and who would foot the bill. Given the savings shortfalls we see across the nation, it’s surely got to be a worthwhile spend."
