Six firms have been chosen as technology development partners on the pensions dashboard, creating the first prototype of an online service which will show people all their pension savings together.
The project is being managed by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) on behalf of HM Treasury, with the prototype due to be ready for testing in March next year.
Over 60 firms expressed an interest in taking part in the project on a pro bono basis.
After a competitive evaluation process, the firms have been assigned to five different areas of the project as follows:
Pensions Dashboard User Interface (how people will interact with the dashboard) – Runpath and Experian (joint pitch)
Pensions Finder Services (how the system retrieves information on people’s different pension pots) – Origo and Experian
Identity Providers (verification of people’s identity and personal details) – Safran and Experian
Integration Service Providers (providing the additional connections some pension firms will need to share data with the dashboard) – ITM and Aquila Heywood
Matching / Data Quality Analysis (overcoming the challenges of finding everyone’s pension in every system) – ITM and Experian.
ABI director of long-term savings and protection policy Yvonne Braun says: “The concept behind the Pensions Dashboard is brilliantly simple – savers should be able to see at a glance what money they are likely to have in their retirement, based on all the pensions they’ve gathered during their working lives. The practicalities of making this happen are, however, very complex and involve securely retrieving and presenting a large amount of personal and financial information for every person of working age in the country.
“The pensions industry – in all its forms – is committed to delivering the Pensions Dashboard, which has the potential to revolutionise how people think about saving for later life. It’s great to see how many technology firms share our vision of accessible pension information as the project goes from strength to strength.”
Simon Kirby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, says: “I am delighted to see the pensions industry and the FinTech sector collaborating to make the pensions dashboard a reality. We are making great progress in ensuring people will have all the information they need in one place so they can plan more easily for their future. This is a very positive development for consumers and I look forward to seeing a working prototype by March 2017.”
Aviva head of financial research John Lawson says: “This is a big step forward in the pensions dashboard project and shows that that the project remains on track to deliver the first prototype in the first half of 2017.
“The project now has wide backing within the pensions industry. With the expertise of the FinTech industry now on board, this project is set to revolutionise the way people engage with their pensions.”