A group of teccies have come together to make the internet of things happen. This is from their press release
The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) is focused on defining a common communications framework based on industry standard technologies to wirelessly connect and intelligently manage the flow of information among personal computing and emerging IoT devices, regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider.
Leaders from a broad range of industry vertical segments – from smart home and office solutions to automotive and more – will participate in the program. This will help ensure that OIC specifications and open source implementations will help companies design products that intelligently, reliably and securely manage and exchange information under changing conditions, power and bandwidth, and even without an Internet connection.
The first OIC open source code will target the specific requirements of smart home and office solutions. For example, the specifications could make it simple to remotely control and receive notifications from smart home appliances or enterprise devices using securely provisioned smartphones, tablets or PCs.
Which means we’ll have lower electricity bills, won’t run our of toothpaste and I’ll never forget to double-lock every door (Stella).
So that’s my house sorted, what about my pension? Can I have readily accessible data on my smartphone,table or PC that is really useful to me, my clients and to the Regulator?
It seems to me that pensions is characterised by the lack of useful data to be had and the appalling load times to get the data from one place to another.
Case Study One, we went to see a leading pension scheme and asked if they knew what they were paying for their foreign exchange hedging. The CIO admitted to not knowing . When we asked why he said that his custodian could not collect the data and even if it could, would not provide it in a format he could make any sense of.
It’s called an information asymmetry
Case Study Two, The FD of one of our clients is asked by an analyst for the impact on the funding position of her DB scheme of a one basis point move in interest rates (I believe this is called PV01). This number allows the analyst to understand the sensitivity to their balance sheets of market fluctuations. This information is only available through a handful of sources controlled by those with intimate understanding of the derivative markets. The FD pays a substantial sum for the calculation.
It’s called an information asymmetry
Case study three; I am planning on drawing a pension from my DC savings. I want to know how short I am of my target income calculated using the best guaranteed rate for an annuity, the lower and higher GAD rates (and here I am looking into the future) the highest lowest and median rates offered from a Collective DC scheme.
I want a number that expresses the amount I need to put into my pension to guarantee myself a pension, know how much I need for the upper and lower levels of drawdown and what a collective scheme will give me.
These numbers aren’t available and you’ve guessed it-
it’s an information asymmetry
Now in all three case studies, the data does exist, what’s missing is the pipe to get it from the data source to an integrated database and the savvy to convert that information into something the CIO, the FD and the everyday member can make sense of.
To paraphrase Eric Morecambe- we’ve got all the right numbers but not necessarily with the right people.
There are many other examples of intelligence that are failing us
- We cannot go online and using the Gateway get an online valuation of our state pension benefits, what the cost of buying extra state pension and how much extra pension we would get if we were to defer retirement
- The Pension Regulator cannot get Real Time Information on the number of employers paying over contributions to workplace pension providers in line with the auto-enrolment regulations
- I cannot get an online account of the residual pensions I have from previous jobs.
- I cannot get online transfer values for my personal pensions and occupational DC pensiosn
- I cannot get online transfer values for my DB pensions.
The internet of pensions is pathetically limited and while I can look forward in the not too distant future to knowing if I’ve left the bathroom tap on when I’m on my way to work, there is no prospect that I’ll know what I’ve got, let alone what I need – from my retirement planning.
The Open Interconnect Consortium – pensions need you!
This post was first published at http://www.pensionplaypen.com
