Product providers have such a blinkered view of the world.
According to The Pensions Regulator there are more than 1.3m companies left to implement auto-enrolment between now and April 2018.
But pension providers have failed to show joined-up thinking at a payroll level, making it difficult for firms to actually implement the new ‘pensions-for-all’ rules.
The problem lies in the way payroll data is sent from employers to pension providers, telling them how much each employee is saving.
Every provider has a different file format and a different login procedure for transferring the data. In most cases you have to have separate login details per pension scheme rather than per administrator company.
This means payroll providers, accountants and financial advisers have to process a separate file format and upload payroll and pensions data for every employer separately rather than just for every pension provider.
In an ideal world, standard principles for data transfers would be implemented without delay and every product provider would enable bulk uploads to help us service the 1.3m future companies yet to enter auto-enrolment.
Jonathan Bray is head of corporate services at Three Counties
