Dave Tonge, CTO
Our CTO Dave Tonge finds out from Moneyhub Pensions Strategy Advisor Richard Smith , hearing how Moneyhub is right at the forefront of developing pensions dashboards which clients will be able to integrate with their existing apps
Richard, you’ve explained why dashboards are important , why pension providers will very likely want to have a dashboard for their customers and what providers should be doing now
But how exactly will pensions dashboards work?
So, to explain that, I need to say something about how the dashboards ecosystem is being set up generally.
The Government has defined a technical architecture for pensions dashboards which involves lots of different technology components operating together so that dashboards work successfully for consumers.
Dashboards: First of all, there are the front-end dashboards which people will see and use
Central Service: These various different front-end dashboards will connect into the Government’s central digital architecture [this is layer 4 in the diagram]. This will verify the user’s digital identity and allow them to consent for their personal details to be passed to all of the UK’s pension schemes and providers, in order to Search for their pensions.
Data providers: The final component is then the digital connection which every pension scheme and provider must, by law, make into the central digital architecture.
Got it. So those are the components: front-end dashboards, central Government service, and “back-end” data connections. But how will it work?
When a user’s digital personal details are passed to all pension schemes and providers, they must compare the details against their records to see if they have a pension for the user.
Where they make a match, schemes and providers are required by law to return a defined set of pension information. Then, whichever dashboard the person is using will Show an indicative summary snapshot of their pensions, based on the prescribed information returned by their schemes and providers.
You make that sound very simple, Richard. But I know from our alpha work that it’s anything but – it’s going to be a big deal to get this all up and running. It’s correct to say, isn’t it, that Government has had to limit the scope of initial dashboards in order to get them launched?
What won’t initial pensions dashboards do?
That’s right. The new digital Search facility is going to be really powerful, but the initial Show of an indicative snapshot of pensions is going to have some constraints, initially. Let me explain a few things that dashboards aren’t:
They’re not a “live link” to your pensions. Existing Moneyhub open finance tools enable live connections to many (although not all) pension providers. Dashboards are different - they show a one-off snapshot, then drop the data.
That’s important to understand. No data is stored in dashboards. When the user logs out, all the pensions information is dropped.
Nor is the pension information returned fully up to date. Government has defined that schemes and providers must return a snapshot as at dates over the last year. So some of it may be a little out of date.
Really, it will just be enough to Show an indicative summary of what you might get in retirement. But none of the figures are definitive; it’s just indicative.
How will Moneyhub’s dashboard help customers do more?
Well we know some users will wish to take things further and Moneyhub’s dashboard will Support them with all of those next steps.
For example, having searched for and found their pensions, users could then go on to make a live link, using Moneyhub’s existing open finance APIs, to see their up to date pension figures.
There are actually lots of different things people might want to do, depending on their very unique, individual, circumstances, so this is really just the beginning.
So our clients can take the Government-compliant parts of the Moneyhub dashboard, and then integrate these with their existing pension tools, so their customers are able to take whatever next steps are appropriate?
That’s exactly right. Over the coming weeks, as the Government’s alpha phase progresses, we’ll be publishing more information on each of these Search, Show and Support components of the Moneyhub pensions dashboard product suite.
There’s a lot of detail to cover: we’ve only really just scratched the surface in this introductory chat.
Richard, it’s been absolutely fantastic to have this first discussion. Tell me where people can find out more?
People should register for updates at the Moneyhub website. Keep visiting as we’ll be publishing lots more detailed information about Moneyhub’s pensions dashboards product suite, and how clients can white label it.
Thanks so much Richard – really looking forward to hearing more.
