The pensions dashboard concept is brilliantly simple – savers should be able to see at a glance what money they’re likely to have in their retirement, based on all their pension entitlements.

The practicalities, however, are very complex and involve securely retrieving and presenting a large amount of personal and financial information for every employee in the country.

The ABI is currently project managing the creation of a prototype for the government, a crucial step towards creating a system the public can use from 2019.

This initial project is not going to result in a perfect solution, but it is making great progress and highlighting many challenges. How can we ensure all pension data is accessible and meaningful? How will people’s identities be confirmed?

The obstacles are many and varied but we are being joined by visionary technology firms designing solutions right now. What’s at stake is too important for us not to get right. Giving everyone online access to all their pension information in a single place of their choosing should revolutionise how they think about saving.

People need to feel ownership of their funds, and understand what to do to build up the retirement income they want. There is great commitment to this project from all facets of the pensions industry. If you’re part of a pension scheme that isn’t currently involved – get ready to get on board.

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