Currently not enough people are saving for their retirement. One aim of the Pensions Dashboard platform is to help highlight the importance of saving for retirement. This HM Treasury initiative is being managed by the Association of British Insurers and will be designed so that customers can view all their pension pots, including their state pension, in one place.
Experian research shows that nearly 1 in 4 don’t have any pension’s savings at all.
The pension’s challenge facing the UK is both a financial and cultural one. The pension’s dashboard will provide transparency so the individual can clearly see all of their pensions and make an assessment as to whether their current provision is enough for them for when they retire.
Currently over half of people Experian surveyed access their pension information only once a year.
If individuals are to own their long term financial future then regular engagement from their pension provider is needed. This will help them better understand their situation and own it – informed by you.
One of the success measurements for the dashboard will be whether it helps to increase a person’s retirement savings. Ultimately this helps lead towards reducing the overall retirement savings gap which is seen across the UK.
The opportunity for pension providers
As a pension provider you have an opportunity to be on the front foot. If you engage better with your customers and better understand them you will start to reap the rewards of better levels of trust and loyalty. If you do this digitally, you will be in a position where you are directly supporting their needs and wants.
People don’t separate out companies or utilities. They have an expectation and this is then expected to be the same no matter what they are doing. For example whether they are buying groceries or managing their pensions.
You shouldn’t wait until the Pensions Dashboard is live either.
Serving customers better before the pension’s dashboard goes live will mean you can start to get greater brand resonance and loyalty now. This will put you in good position for when it is live. It will also improve your chances of being the consolidator of pension pots rather than being consolidated against.
It’s expected that once customers have a clearer view of their pension’s pots they will want to bring them all together.
Experian have helped develop specific components within the dashboard. These include:
1. Data quality
Data quality is important to the success of the dashboard as the information passed back to the customer, and to you, will only be as good as the data going into the platform.
Experian is approaching data quality within the dashboard by grouping the individuals’ pension data (from various providers and other sources) using our unique ExPin. This essentially pins together all customer data into one place. Giving a single customer view that’s validated.
2. Identity
It’s important that we know exactly who the individual is that is looking to access the account. Getting this wrong could mean that a fraudster is accessing someone’s personal information.
To manage this, Experian has used its identity services, the same as used for Gov.UK/Verify, within the prototype project. We can then identify the customer upfront to confirm it’s a legitimate request before the pension search takes place.
So, what does this mean for you?
The future is all about ownership. GDPR and Open Banking give the rights of data to the owner of it through consent. And the pension’s dashboard does the same. It passes ownership to the individual to better help them, help themselves.
You need to develop an effective channel strategy. Dissecting this down will help you to develop something that is of high, long-term value, costs you less, and takes less manpower too.
