Response times on the pensions dashboards are coming into focus as some in the industry believe the government is looking at potentially allowing a delay of several days for data to be returned in its upcoming consultation. What would such a delay in data being available do to the user experience? 

 

The pensions dashboards are due to start onboarding the largest defined contribution master trusts from April next year, but the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s ‘Pensions dashboards A-Z' shows decisions on crucial elements have still not been made. These range from liability for the data returned, to deciding at what point dashboards become available to the public, to whether data must be displayed instantly or not. 

 

The Department for Work and Pensions is expected to release a consultation on dashboards at the end of this month; some of these issues are likely to be addressed in this. One could be a proposal to allow a time lag between a member making a request on the dashboard and the schemes returning the data. 

 

 

The delivery time for data is currently causing concern in some quarters. At a recent event about user behaviour hosted by the Association of British Insurers, an audience member highlighted that providers may have up to three days to provide information about defined contribution pensions and up to 10 days for defined benefit information – noting that this would feel like an offline interaction, rather than the slick open banking-type experience people are likely to expect. 

 

Jon Dean, head of retirement strategy at fintech firm Altus, said he has also heard that the government is considering time lags, but that nothing has been decided. 

 

However, given users’ other online experiences, having a delay until information can be seen “does fly in the face of what we’re used to”, he said, noting that ISA providers, for example, provide up to date values and share prices. “Why would you not expect the same thing for DC?” he said. 

 

Government and industry must “make it an utmost priority to get valuations in as easily as possible and ideally, not necessarily as instantly as an insurance quote, but within 10 seconds; a reasonable sort of time people would hold on for”, he said. 

  

 

How recent the data displayed must be is yet another unresolved question. Dean expects large players to have that data available, “possibly through APIs or intermediate layers”, such as the open-market integrated service provider that Altus and ITM are currently working on, which aims to offer seamless data connections to all scheme types and data providers. 

 

Dean said there are outstanding decisions on whether pensions data will persist on the ISP layer and then refreshed whenever a new request comes in. 

 

There appears to be little tolerance around recency for DC data, but this could be looked at differently for DB information. He notes that DB schemes may only have one calculation a year, but he argues that providing that latest value on th dashboards would be sufficient. “That’s enough. As long as it’s an ‘as at’ date, that would seem fine,” he said.  

 

What is unclear however is whether any time lag would need to be accompanied by a notification once the valuation has been updated. “If it’s 10 days you’ve forgotten about it or lost interest unless there is a notification,” he said. “If you’re not using those tools, it’s a missed opportunity,” he added, arguing that the dashboards need to be about engaging savers. 

 

 

Richard Smith, an independent pension professional, agreed there would need to be an alert system if there was a delay. 

 

More fundamentally however, he believes it is a mistake to try and fix such technical issues in regulations. He said the dashboards should be launched and improved based on experience rather than theory, as this is what other countries that already have a pensions dashboard like the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark have advised. 

 

“They all said launch something and make it better,” Smith said, noting that Sweden has already overhauled its dashboards twice.
   

 

“Have any international [dashboards] locked down data requirements in regulations? No,” he added. Although the Dutch system governs data requirements in that they cannot be changed more than once a year, “it’s nimble, not [decided] through parliament”, he noted. 

 

However, questions around liability for the data shown – and liability where it is not shown – are also unresolved, and this might be contributing to the perceived need to have regulations governing every aspect. 

 

A further big question mark is around what happens with the estimated £19.4bn worth of lost pension pots, Smith pointed out – particularly as the UK pensions dashboards will not be aimed at pensioners. “A lot of that belongs to pensioners. If I am an 80-year-old, should I have an expectation I can see a pension I’ve lost?” 

 

The DWP said it will be setting out detailed proposals as part of its forthcoming pensions dashboards consultation shortly. 

 

How do you feel about a potential time lag between a dashboard request and data being displayed?