• Savers hoping to see all their retirement pots in one place online might need to wait until at least 2025 for Pensions Dashboards to be full formed
• The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), a body established to advise Government on the reforms, has today published a timetable for pension schemes to connect to Dashboards (PDP-staging-call-for-input-27-05-21.pdf (pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk))
• While the first wave of schemes would connect to Dashboards in Spring 2023 under the plans, this process could take 2 years under the PDP plans
• Furthermore, there is not yet a proposed start date for ‘onboarding’ the smallest pension schemes
• Slow progress will likely anger some given the Government previously said Dashboards could launch in 2019
Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, comments:
“Pensions Dashboards have the potential to make life a whole lot easier for millions of people who build multiple retirement pots over the course of their working lives.
“Being able to see all of your retirement pots in one place online could be a game changer. Most obviously it should save people the hassle of digging through old statements – if they have them at all – when they want to consolidate their old schemes.
“It should also make the scourge of lost pension pots a thing of the past, and over the longer-term could become a tool to boost retirement engagement and understanding.
“However, before that great pensions oak tree can emerge the Government and the pensions industry needs to get an acorn in the ground.
“There is little doubt the Government was wildly optimistic when it suggested Dashboards could be up-and-running in 2019. This is a huge project involving vast amounts of data and with people’s life savings at stake, so the most important thing is ensuring that data is safe and the information people eventually see on Dashboards is reliable.
“While the pace of the outlined timetable is enough to make a snail blush and will frustrate many – not least Government ministers – it is infinitely better than headlines of another IT disaster.
“That said, we hope the Government and the FCA will hold the feet of the laggards to the fire to ensure Dashboards become a reality as soon as possible.”
