The dashboard, if produced well, should bring increased clarity to consumers and hopefully more trust in the pensions industry. Many consumers lose track of historic pensions and don’t understand what they might now be worth. However, this will be a lot of work for the pensions industry, especially for those who are less technologically advanced or have more complex pensions such as self-invested personal pensions and small self-administered schemes.
We are going to see very misleading values for assets that are not valued on a regular basis, such as commercial property, loan-backs or unlisted company shares. This is going to be a small part of the market, but that doesn’t make it any less important. In addition, those with closed books of business may not feel quite as compelled to get involved, and so legislation may be required in these cases.
At the very start of the paper Guy Opperman says: “Over time, industry-led pension dashboards will transform retirement savings and pensions forever.”
I am not as positive about this, but am willing to have my mind changed. The issue is consumers’ lack of engagement with pensions generally. A dashboard won’t really be able to address this without some more dynamic tools within it.
Claire Trott is head of pensions strategy at St James’s Place Group
