Industry concerned over member service once dashboards go live, SPP finds

The Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) asked around 250 attendees at a recent webinar what their biggest concerns were in relation to the implementation of pension dashboards.

More than a third (39%) cited concerns over the industry’s capacity to handle the volume of member queries. Just under a fifth (19%) said data in general was their biggest concern, while 12% said they were concerned about value data not accurately representing a member’s benefit.

Despite these data concerns, more than half (55%) said the data they were responsible for was clean enough to be sent to the dashboards’ systems. A further 29% had a plan for achieving this by the end of 2026.

However, 10% of respondents said their data cleansing exercises would take more than a year to complete.

Lynda Whitney, a member of the SPP and senior partner at Aon, who chaired the event, hailed the “significant progress” towards connecting to the dashboard ecosystem, as well as the level of positive engagement across the pensions industry.

“However, the findings from this SPP polling underline that important challenges remain,” Whitney added.

“In particular, concerns around managing potential query volumes and ensuring the accuracy and completeness of member data show that schemes are rightly focused on delivering a reliable experience.

“Building confidence in the data that underpins dashboards will be vital for their success, and it’s encouraging that many schemes either feel ready or have clear plans in place to reach that position over the coming year.”

The final few staging deadlines between now and October’s final deadline cover pension schemes with fewer than 400 members.