UK may force insurers to pay for pensions dashboard

A UK Treasury official has said the government is looking at introducing a law that would force pension providers to pay towards creating the pensions dashboard.

UK may force insurers to pay for pensions dashboard

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According to British media reports, economic secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirby said the government could make rules to force providers to build the dashboard.

The event marked the launch of 11 pension providers signing up to trial the pensions dashboard system, including insurance giants Standard Life, Zurich, Royal London and Aviva.

The dashboard, which will show people all of their pension savings in one place, is due to be rolled out by 2019 although the first prototype will be ready by March 2017.

Announced in the budget in March, the platform is part of government’s move to make it easier for UK savers to keep track of pensions pots accumulated throughout their careers when they move jobs.

Speaking at an event hosted by insurer Aviva on Monday, Kirby also confirmed the state pension statements will be part of the dashboard, although he did not say whether this will be included in the first model when it launches next year.

However, the MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven added the dashboard needs to be flexible, open to a range of companies including banks and fintechs, not just pension providers.

“No single dashboard can meet the needs of millions of people who all have very different individual circumstances. There is definitely no government website that could do that either.

“There is no monopoly of wisdom. The dashboard needs to be an infrastructure of open standards – like a common language and system for finding, collating, and sharing pension information,” said Kirby.