Baroness’ comment ended up inspiring this discussion so I’ve split the thread into a dedicated topic.
Me too! As you might have heard already, the government had announced an initiative that would create a pension dashboard, which was supposed to -
bring all the 64m different pension pots in Britain under one roof so that individuals can see all their entitlements in one place
but the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions wants to kill the project which is not great news -
The Association of British Insurers pointed out that one in five workers already admits to having lost track of at least one pension pot and that an estimated £3 billion is sitting unclaimed in accounts.
Dominic Lindley, author of a report on the pensions dashboard for Which? , said: “Given the complexity that consumers face in trying to keep track of their pensions it would be a disaster if the government abandoned this policy.”
I guess that from Pensionbee’s point of view, that’ll be good though as that consolidated view is quite an important part of their value proposition..
I don’t know too much about the government’s pensions dashboard, but I wonder if it involves opening APIs like the banks have done? The government could then provide a dashboard but other providers (like.Pensionbee) could use those for aggregation too, if they want to.
(Actually, it would be interesting to see pensions in the banking aggregation apps - and it makes sense to see them in the likes of Monzo, too. )
Anyway, these things are always easier to type on the internet than to actually produce, though I do like the idea of somewhere, finally, being able to see my net worth. (Although having typed that it does make me mildly anxious!)
Pensions are too important for this not to go ahead. The Pension Dashboard will be a public good and so it should have government involvement in making it a success.
To calculate its figure of £15,000 in losses for savers, 38 Degrees looked at the government’s projections that there will be about 49.6m dormant or forgotten pension pots, worth £757bn, by 2050, if a dashboard isn’t created.
Dividing £757bn by 49.6m equals an average pension pot size of £15,200, which could potentially be overlooked when an individual retires.
The government have been dragging their heels on this for a very long time, it’s a massive project that will cost a fair amount of money, not to mention the scope across hundreds of providers (mostly legacy). It’s now being suggested that the private sector should try and take the reins, which would mean a solution coming to market much quicker, but would most likely end up with a situation like the banking aggregators are facing, where they cannot scrape all of the data across providers (state, workplace & private - the vast majority being legacy providers with no API) needed for a complete view, which is essential for knowing what you will have available for your retirement. None of this is to say I think it’s a bad idea, I think it’s extremely important for savers to be as well equipped as possible for retirement - see my article on the subject here.
Tom is a good guy and well worth a follow if you’re interested in keeping tabs on this topic.
thank you all for this - very useful! @tommy just started following Tom and about to read your article so thanks for sharing . Pensions is one of those complicated, but shouldn’t be so complicated, finance topics, that I wish people spoke about a little more. The pensions dashboard would be super useful. I think I also read somewhere that regulation / tax schemes on it is always changing which adds another challenge to consolidating and monitoring it?
This is definitely something that should be done by the government but I don’t have much hope anymore. It has been something they have been planning out for a long time. I totally agree with @Baroness that pensions should not be as complicated as they are at the moment.
With the pension dashboard being such a massive task I won’t be surprised if Esther McVey (Work and Pensions Secretary) is simply delaying it so she does not have it happen when she is around. She definitely does not want it to go wrong like the welfare reforms on her watch.
Pension Dashboard Prototype Project - just want to post this link to the official website; there’s a wealth of primary information on here that you just can’t get from the news.
ended up inspiring this discussion so I’ve split the thread into a dedicated topic.
which is not great news -
)
. Pensions is one of those complicated, but shouldn’t be so complicated, finance topics, that I wish people spoke about a little more. The pensions dashboard would be super useful. I think I also read somewhere that regulation / tax schemes on it is always changing which adds another challenge to consolidating and monitoring it?