The Association of British Insurers has revealed the general election means there will be a pause in it's pension dashboard project before the government can resume its role in developing the service.
A prototype was launched in March showing how pension savers could see all their retirement income (both private and state) on the one platform.
With people having up to 11 jobs in a lifetime and the possibility of up to 60 million pension pots building up in a few years time, the need for such a platform has been identified as urgent by the Conservative government.
With this in mind, the ABI and all the supporting pension providers contributing to the project have unanimously agreed to maintain momentum despite the general election resulting in politician's focus being elsewhere "with an interim phase."
According to the ABI, work will be done on a cost benefit analysis for the wider industry as well as researching customer needs to confirm what features people are likely to find most useful in a dashboard.
The project will also establish the requirements and costs for a secure end-to-end service between data providers and data consumers and to develop the technical data standards for all firms and work with PASA (the Pensions Administration Standards Association) on agreeing a Code of Conduct in line with requirements from The Pensions Regulator.
The government’s objective is for the service to be available to consumers by 2019, and for it to be offered by a range of different organisations rather than by a single, central service.
Yvonne Braun, director of long-term savings and protection policy at the ABI, said: “The interim work being undertaken by the contributors and the ABI will allow the pensions dashboard to maintain momentum despite the pause in policy development as a result of the general election.
"The work which will be done focuses on filling in crucial gaps which will ensure the project can proceed without delay once a new government is in place."
Margaret Snowdon, chairman of the Pensions Administration Standards Association and independent member of the Dashboard Prototype Steering Group, said the success of the dashboard prototype and its enthusiastic reception means we need to press forward with the next phase.
In today's digitally connected world it should be a basic right for everyone to go to a pensions dashboard and see all the value of all their pension savings in one place.Adrian BouldingAdrian Boulding, director of policy at Now: Pensions, is also an enthusiastic supporter of the project.
He said: "In today's digitally connected world it should be a basic right for everyone to go to a pensions dashboard and see all the value of all their pension savings in one place."
"The Conservatives planned new Data Protection Bill would be an ideal vehicle for the next government to make this happen and we would expect the concept to have cross party support.
"Trying to plan your financial future when you can only see part of the picture is a hopeless exercise so having all pension entitlements on the consumer’s dashboard is vital."
But Nigel Peaple, deputy director for defined contribution at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, sounded a note of caution.
Mr Peaple said: "It is important to identify the needs of savers and costs to the pensions sector before taking the project further forward."
The full list of contributing firms is: Abbey Life (now part of Phoenix), Aon, Aviva, Fidelity International, HSBC, Legal & General, Lloyds Banking Group (Scottish Widows), LV, Nest, Now: Pensions, Phoenix, Prudential, Royal London, Standard Life, The People’s Pension (B&CE), Willis Towers Watson, Zurich.
stephanie.hawthorne@ft.com
