The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) is seeking consumer testers for the next phase of development of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard.
Phase two of the testing process officially began this week, and MaPS has called on pension providers to spread the word among savers and scheme members to get them involved with the trials. Employers and charities have also been asked to take part.
In particular, MaPS said it wanted to involve “individuals with access needs or confidence barriers around literacy, numeracy, digital skills and technology”.
Oliver Morley, chief executive officer at MaPS, said: “This is a great opportunity to get to use a pensions dashboard before they become available to the wider public. Dashboards are going to be a transformative tool, and we’re really keen to sign people up for consumer testing.
“Industry’s help in making this happen would demonstrate our continued collaborative approach to making dashboards happen.”
Those keen to support MaPS in recruiting testers can register to receive the toolkit.
Morley said the first phase of testing, which kicked off last year, generated “positive feedback” on the design and user experience of the MoneyHelper dashboard. This was based on feedback from industry testers.
The second phase will involve “increasing numbers of users across a range of demographic groups and pension types”, MaPS said, with the aim of “further refining and improving the service before it becomes publicly available”.
Meanwhile, the final few staging deadlines for pension schemes to connect to the dashboard system are approaching. By the end of this month, all schemes with 400 to 599 members should be connected if they are not already.
The rest of the deadlines are:
| Deadline | Applicable schemes |
|---|---|
| 30 April | All schemes with 320 to 399 members |
| 31 May | All schemes with 250 to 319 members |
| 30 June | All schemes with 195 to 249 members |
| 31 July | All schemes with 155 to 194 members |
| 31 August | All schemes with 125 to 154 members |
| 30 September | All schemes with 100 to 124 members |
| 31 October | Statutory deadline for all schemes in scope |
Why small schemes face a different dashboard connection challenge
With the final few staging deadlines approaching, dashboard connections are top of the agenda for many small schemes. As the Pensions Administration Standards Association’s Maurice Titley explains, these will face some tricky challenges that larger schemes may not have had to navigate. Read the full article.
