Quite a bit of my time at the moment is occupied with working out how Scotland could possibly get out of a group containing the reigning world champions and the number 1 ranked side in the world. Answer is: they could not, so just watch the rugby and try not to get too despondent.

When not pondering rugby I am now helping firms with the more nuanced question of “Should we host a pensions dashboard?”

The answer depends on a few basic factors, mainly around the company themselves. But here are a few follow-up questions I tend to use.

How worried are you that your customers will be able to see their pension with you on AVIVA’s website?

You can change the word AVIVA to that company’s most feared competitor but it gets the message across. I used to say Standard Life at my old place. It’s an Edinburgh thing.
The underlying point is that Pensions Dashboards mean that clients will be looking up their pensions information on somebody else’s website. To the point that they might not come to yours. If you are serious about wishing to engage your customer digitally then you probably need to host one to counter this.

Do you worry about money flowing out of your back book?

I know the FCA are keen that Pensions Dashboards are not to be used directly to target pensions consolidation. But I don’t see how they can stop it. On discovering they have six pensions, people are going to start pondering the notion of putting some of those pots into one place. I suspect that parts of the pensions industry might even sail as close to the regulatory line as they dare in order to plant that idea in their head.
I just cannot see a world where Pensions Dashboards don’t lead to more consolidation. Which is fine if you are a pensions firm set up to hoover up pots and have a Pensions Dashboard on your site. But if you don’t host a Dashboard you may well find that outflows will outweigh inflows.

Are you interested in helping your customers / members?

A little more altruistic but at the very heart of the matter. The reality is that most people in the UK don’t understand their pensions nearly enough. Which is a big problem. The point of Pensions Dashboards for me is they can be used to help fix this problem. The ability for a customer to see all their pensions savings in one place is useful. Taking that information and putting it into context for them is even more so.
And in case doing the right thing isn’t enough of a reason then may I suggest a couple of other points you might like to consider?
Consumer Duty kind of suggests you need to look at this sort of thing.
People might well pick who to consolidate to based on who is good at this.

Do the sums add up?

Now you might well think, “Of course Ian is going to say you should host a Dashboard.”
Well actually no. There are perfectly good reasons not to. Number 1 being that it’s not free to host one.
You need to have a connection to the Dashboard API and the rest of the IT in place. You can of course build one yourself or look at the various organisations in the 3rd party space, such as Moneyhub or Bud.
But also a big consideration is the process for getting the regulatory permissions in order to host one. The FCA will require quite the effort from anybody that wants to host a Dashboard. They will want to see a business case and a 3rd party audit of technical compliance.
So any firm will have to consider the costs against the benefits carefully before they build or buy.

Does it tie in with what you already do?

There are all sorts of organisations that will want to have Pensions Dashboard as a new tool on their existing digital experience if digital is a key plank of their strategy, be it for distribution, engagement or operational efficiency.
But not everybody involved in pensions is in this place.
Some organisations are still comfortable dealing with clients in a face-to-face or more personal manner such as financial advisers. Some DB pensions schemes may find that the core issues of running the scheme are their primary concern.
As I said at the start of all this, it depends… on your business strategy.

Do you need help?

To conclude, there are various issues to consider when looking at the potential for hosting a Pensions Dashboard. If you think you may need help with that, please get in touch .