The dashboard is coming
From the blog: In the final month of work on the pensions dashboard prototype, where all parties involved in the project align their areas of input, we begin the tests and demonstrations with various stakeholders, including government ministers.
It is at this point that pensions dashboards move from plan to reality. And the industry needs to ensure it is in a position to meet the challenges and deliver for consumers.
Getting internal systems ready is vital in making sure the industry responds positively to dashboards when the system goes live in 2019
As we head towards the 2019 pensions dashboard launch deadline, there are possibly three key areas around data provision that every pension provider and administrator will need to tackle to ensure that details are capable of being searched on behalf of many dashboard users, multiple times a day:
- Accessibility: ‘Opening up’ systems so that data can be accessed by dashboards and ultimately consumers, securely.
- Data quality: Data of high quality can be easily searched, this means pensions can be found and displayed helping consumers make informed decisions. On the other hand, poor data quality will mean searches for pensions will fail, pensions will remain ‘lost’ and there is no benefit to consumers.
- Performance: The dashboard will have methods of coping with demand from the users. However, that is only one half of the exchange of data. Enabling timely responses may mean a review of providers’ and administrators’ system performance to cope with the demand for data.
The industry needs to be thinking about these issues now and putting the wheels in motion to ensure the demands placed on systems by the heavily publicised pensions dashboard can be met.
As well as dashboard infrastructure being able to cope with the potential volumes, getting internal systems ready is vital in making sure the industry responds positively to dashboards when the system goes live in 2019.
As the first wave of pensions savers start to use dashboards (there are more than 60 million pension pots and memberships out there, according to the Association of British Insurers), we need the ability to deliver what is required to help consumers in planning for their future.
Dashboards need a successful launch to gain consumer confidence, and it is within the industry’s gift to deliver that in 2019.
Paul Pettitt is managing director at industry body Origo