Margaret Snowdon, Chair at PASA, commented: “The increasing use of robotics in the pensions industry is an opportunity to be seized. Evidence from outside our sector has shown that rather than reducing employment, automation and the development of robotics simply changes the jobs that people do. And as we are seeing already, as robotics move increasingly into areas like pensions administration, fantastic initiatives using technology such as gamification and voice biometrics are being developed and delivered for the good of members.
“Central to the success of robotics in our industry will be to listen to members and understand how they want to engage so that we ensure that where they want interaction with a person they have it. If we juggle this fine balance in the right way then skilled pension professionals can be freed up from repetitive tasks to instead focus on providing the service and the help that members truly want and need.”
Snowdon added: “Critical to the success of robotics is that the volume of poor data is addressed, as data must be good enough to allow the technology to follow an automated pathway and to help members make more appropriate decisions. This will no doubt pose a hurdle for many, but should already be high priority for schemes in preparation for the new GDPR regulations. If we commit to getting this done and the incorporation of robotics is managed in the right way, then we have the potential to restore confidence in the industry and in saving for retirement overall. It could help avoid the spectre of pensioner poverty and greatly enhance members’ retirement outcome potential.”
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