Third of BT Pension Scheme members sign up to online portal

Some 78,000 of BTPS’s 275,000 members have registered to manage their pension digitally, only four months after the portal was launched.

The scheme’s member portal is the “culmination of more than two years of work, developed using in-depth member research and digital best practice to understand member needs — particularly at the point of retirement”, BTPS stated.

The portal, built on pensions software company Procentia’s IntelliPen system, is accessible via a new website and has been designed to be easy to navigate and personalised to each member.

Procentia was purchased by the scheme in December 2019 to future-proof member services and as an investment in its own right, the scheme added.

A key feature of the system is a pension calculator, which enables members approaching retirement to model their benefits, helping them decide when to take their pension by showing them its value at different retirement dates, as well as modelling all of the options available to them.

Since launch, more than 190,000 calculations have been run using the calculator and 43 per cent of newly retired members have committed to confirming their retirement choice using the portal.

It also enables members to update personal information quickly, download their pension payslips and P60s, and see the value of their pension each month and their payment dates.

Dave Tomlins, head of pension services delivery at BTPS, said: “We have steadily increased member satisfaction scores since bringing member administration in-house in 2018. But we needed to build the high-quality online services members told us they want.

“We’ve listened and developed a member portal, which is simple to navigate, easy to use and supports better decision-making. Its popularity shows that we’ve delivered what members want and we’ll continue to work to make continuous improvements.”