On the go: The Pensions Administration Standards Association has urged schemes to act now on data matching in preparation for dashboards, deciding how to digitally compare and match “find requests” from users against their records.
Legislative duties pertaining to pensions dashboards come into force from 2023, as schemes reach their various staging dates.
In updated data matching guidance, published on August 23, PASA explained the “pressing need” for schemes to engage prior to that date, adding two chapters to its core guidance on the topic that includes a call to action, and set out what will be included in forthcoming additional guidance.
In its call to action, PASA explained that schemes and administrators should liaise to devise “manageable” and “cost-effective” solutions for trustees.
“Working very collaboratively with their administrator, technology providers and wider data specialist providers, schemes should seek to understand the level of confidence in the accuracy of the surnames, [dates of birth] and [national insurance numbers] on all deferred and active member records,” it said.
Schemes should also take steps “to improve the accuracy of this personal data”, and then review the data matching guidance to determine the best matching option.
The existing guidance sets out the four matching options available. Option 1 sees a positive return if surname, date of birth and NI number match perfectly, but no return if they do not. This works where there is high confidence in the data, but not especially well when there is less than high confidence.
An enhanced version of option 1 operates in a similar way but admits alternate name, date of birth and NI data, provided it perfectly matches the records held by the scheme.
Both options suit situations where there is high confidence in the data. Where there is less than high confidence, options 2 and 3 may be chosen instead, as these allow for “maybe matches”.
“Option 1, with perfect surnames, DOBs and NI numbers on all deferred and active records is what all schemes should be aiming for. But not all schemes are there yet, so in the interim, other matching options may be required,” PASA stated.
Of its additional guidance, the industry body said it would include sections on options for matching data without an NI number, either because one is not provided or because the one provided is not verifiable or reliable.
It will also cover “possible matching”, or responses to dashboard requests that only provide administrator data and not benefit data. This results in a confident but not a definite match.
“Options for matching must cover this scenario and make recommendations which manage trustees’ risk, striking the right balance between reconnecting savers to their pensions but avoiding large volumes of calls to administrators if too many ‘false matches’ are returned,” PASA explained.
Additional guidance will likewise deal with split-administration scenarios; for example, where there are multiple sections in a single scheme and savers who have benefits in both.
PASA chair Kim Gubler said: “All schemes need to focus on this important topic of data matching now.
“PASA produced this guidance and continues to update it to support the pensions administration community in liaising with schemes, and working with them to produce solutions which work for all parties.”
