According to the firm, data was taken from more than 440 pension providers with over 20 million members. It was found that pension products established prior to the millennium (over three fifths of all member pots surveyed) “were found to have the highest average levels of inaccurate or missing customer data”; something often triggered by issues with legacy books and systems.
A staggering 60 per cent of defined benefit (DB) pots with a value of £100,000 to £200,000 that pre-date the year 2000 were found to have missing or inaccurate postcode data, for example. Research also showed that around 30 per cent of DB schemes set up in the same period had incorrect data for dates of birth.
Discussing the findings, ITM chairman Duncan Howorth suggests extending the criteria for providers wishing to sign-up for the pensions dashboards to include minimum data standards. This, he believes, would encourage each segment of the pensions industry to “make sure that everybody’s engaged in the process of improving data”, while firms like ITM continue to run forums and research to help the process along.
Mr Howorth says: “I think what probably needs to happen next is to determine some data standards. We need to decide how we’re going to identify people so that they have the right data. This is going to happen in phases.
“There will be the first phase, which will contain certain data about different pension pots, and then I would suspect over two or three years the quantum of the data will increase. What’s most important is that we get the whole of the industry participating, if necessary.“
Hayley North, financial planner at London-based firm Rose and North, suggests that providing standardised data is “a moral responsibility”.
Ms North says: “There are providers I can’t bear dealing with, but unfortunately we have to several times a year. They have no client interest in mind at all. They’re all about what they want and need and nothing about customer service. So, they will eventually be dragged screaming into this, and that can only be a good thing because ultimately that will then resolve those problems.”
Echoing Ms North’s frustrations, Mr McKenna adds that schemes with poor standards should face the consequences. “My own view is that there should be far more severe penalties for trustees that don’t keep good records. I know that won’t be popular in certain areas, but, frankly, if people with an FCA-regulated business behaved in the way some trustees do in trust-based schemes, the FCA would come down on them like a ton of bricks. I don’t really see why they’re allowed to get away with it.”
