Yesterday the Money and Pensions Service  opened a consultation on Pensions Dashboards’ data standards, seeking industry-wide input on the definition and scope of the information dashboards will  display.

The call for input seeks views on:

•       the personal data items which will be used to digitally match individuals to all their different pensions, and also
•       the specific information about each pension which dashboards will display.

Clare Reilly, Head of Corporate Development of PensionBee, commented:

“PensionBee believes savers have a right to know how much they are paying in charges for their pensions. It is essential to include charges information on pensions as part of the initial phase of the Dashboards in order to help savers of all ages make informed decisions about their pensions before their pots are spent and gone”.

In June PensionBee found that 95% of retirement age savers think it’s essential that they can see how much their provider is charging them when they log in to the Pensions Dashboards.

AgeWage support PensionBee’s call for savers to be told what they are paying. AgeWage is researching ways to show whether what they pay gives each saver value for money.

AgeWage believes there needs to be clear and independent measurement of both value and money and calls on those charged with assessing VFM to adopt a consistent measure.

It calls on Trustees, IGCs and GAAs to include in their Chair Statements Value for Money scores based on the returns each saver has achieved relative to the money each saver has had paid into their pension pot.

Later in July,  AgeWage will be testing the impact on savers for being given this information on multiple pension pots.  This will form the basis of AgeWage’s input.

AgeWage CEO Henry Tapper added.

Let’s make sure everyone’s pension statement tells them what they pay from their pot . Let’s agree now how this information goes on the dashboard and let’s make sure that we agree a proper measure for value for money that can help ordinary people turn pots on a dashboard into a wage in later age.

Romi Savova who is on the Dashboard Steering Group as well as being Pension Bee’s CEO concluded.

By the time it launches, we believe savers will have waited more than 20 years for a dashboard so it needs to be fit for purpose from day one. The reputation and future of pensions depend on it.