Royal London’s Mr Evans notes that one of the most important lessons learned from earlier pensions dashboards was that “the more interventionist the sponsoring body is – the government in this case – the quicker and more comprehensive the coverage”.
“Take the Swedish example. They’ve been labouring at this for well over a decade and they’ve yet to get fully off the ground, although it seems to have made some major breakthroughs in recent times for going online and getting a lot more uptake from private pension companies.”
Noting that Australia’s dashboard, which is hosted by the Australian Tax Office, legislated to make participation compulsory, Mr Evans adds: “They got it done much quicker, which leads us to the conclusion that some form of government leadership on this is necessary – and, if not actual legislation, the threat of it if pension companies aren’t seen to be willing to join in and contribute their data.”
Industry support to make the dashboard mandatory for providers has been pushed by pensions dashboard affiliates as well as other industry representatives.
Nathan Long, senior pensions analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, says: “Put simply, the pension dashboard will fail if it is not made mandatory. The service is significantly undermined if members do not have the confidence of seeing all of their pensions in one place. Plenty of pension providers do not have any incentive to develop the systems to plug into the dashboard. There are still pensions out there that are not even fully administered on computer systems.“
Rose and North’s Ms North adds: “I am confident that they’re going to be pushing as hard as possible, and some of the more difficult firms will eventually be forced to participate. That can only be good for the industry.”
Cheaper for advisers
One of the most widespread claims bandied around following the announcement of the project was the idea that it would significantly reduce administration costs for financial advisers.
F&TRC’s Mr McKenna went as far as to suggest the dashboard could mean costs fall by as much as a quarter for advisers. Speaking to Money Management’s sister title Financial Adviser in February, he suggests that “one might see a saving of 20 to 25 per cent or more” once the dashboard has launched.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s Mr Long isn’t so sure though. He says: “Details about the nuts and bolts of the pensions like guarantees and charges are unlikely to be included in the final pension dashboard, and the ability to make changes to underlying pensions will be absent.
