Around 2,600 schemes are required to connect to pensions dashboards by 31 October – with 75% of member records already connected. Schemes will need to match dashboards users to their pensions and return recent and accurate information to members about their pensions within set legislative timescales.
Dashboards have the potential to transform how people engage with their retirement savings – but only if the information they see is complete and correct.
With the connection deadline approaching and the launch of the MoneyHelper dashboard on the horizon, TPR is urging schemes to act now.
The new regulatory initiative (RI) will target 240 private sector DB and hybrid schemes, assessing how they are preparing to meet their dashboard duties, with a particular focus on the readiness and accuracy of value data. Insights from this work will help inform discussions on the timing of the launch of the MoneyHelper dashboard.
TPR’s Executive Director of Market Oversight, Ben Gunnee, said: “Data readiness goes beyond matching people to their pensions. Schemes need to be ready to return the correct values to members. If schemes do not prepare this information in advance, they risk overwhelming their administration teams and, more importantly, risk providing members with incorrect information.
“We will continue to support schemes through guidance, engagement and regulatory action where necessary to ensure dashboards deliver on their promise to help people plan confidently for retirement.”
This latest RI builds on previous interventions which highlighted that schemes were making good progress on the data they need to find members.
However, preparations on value data were found to be less advanced, which is particularly an issue for DB and hybrid schemes. Unlike DC and some public service schemes, DB and hybrid schemes do not have existing obligations to issue annual benefit statements, meaning their value data is more likely to be out of date.
As there are more than 2,000 private sector DB and hybrid schemes in scope for dashboards, TPR is undertaking a deeper assessment to assess the risk that dashboard users will see incomplete or inaccurate information.
Schemes need to ensure that:
The data on the value of members’ pensions is recent - within the last 12-13 months.
Values are accurate. Inaccurate information could lead members to make poor retirement decisions, causing serious harm.
Values are returned within strict timescales. If the value has been calculated recently, it must be returned within a few seconds. If it is out of date, schemes must calculate the value and return it within three days for DC pensions or within 10 days in all other cases.
|
