Government readies pensions overhaul with digital dashboard consultation
Government has outlined plans to overhaul savers’ access to pensions via a digital dashboard as it opened a consultation on new pension regulation today.
The consultation, led by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), will gather views from across the industry from stakeholders including individual savers, pensions managers and fintech firms as it looks to modernise pension access.
DWP said that the introduction of a digital pensions dashboard would aim to simplify access to pensions and “revolutionise the way people interact with them”.
The draft legislation has proposed a ‘find and view’ approach to the dashboard in which savers can find what pensions savings they have racked up and any relevant information on them.
Large pension schemes will be the first to feed into the new digital dashboard with information between April 2023 and September 2024.
Romi Savova, boss of listed fintech firm PensionBee said a dashboard would be a boon to savers as they look to “take control of retirement savings”.
“Pension dashboards will make it substantially easier for consumers to find their lost pensions and the DWP rightly recognizes that dashboards will lead to a boom in pension consolidation, as consumers seek to take control of their retirement saving,” she said.
“Dashboards and enhanced pension data availability will enable greater innovation within fintech as our industry continues to make progress towards its critical mission of making financial products and services widely accessible for all in the UK.
But Ben Pollard, founder of pensions fintech firm Cushon said that while digitisation in pensions was much needed, government plans laid out in the consultation dragged on for too long.
“The pensions industry is long overdue a tech revolution. It has hugely lagged behind other areas of financial services in terms of innovation and this is hampering people’s ability to understand and engage with their pensions,” he said.
“However, the timeline for this change is still far too long. The industry needs to embrace tech to support savers now, for example by allowing people to check their pension – and any other savings offerings – via an app, and shouldn’t be waiting for legislation to come in.
“In order for the dashboard to be effective, it needs to include nudges and alerts, and include wider financial wellbeing guidance so people can think holistically about their financial situation.”