The development of the pensions dashboard brings us one step closer to the goal of being able to check all of our pensions, ISAs and current accounts in one place, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirby has said.

Kirby was speaking at the launch of the Pensions Dashboard TechSprint at the Aviva Digital Garage, today, where providers have a 24-hour period to build a pensions dashboard app. He noted that it is now possible to check your bank balance on your mobile as you pick up your children from school and much of this is due to the way we can access our own data more easily.

“There is no reason for pensions not to be part of this revolution in personal finances. Very soon we could be in a world where you top up your pension as you buy a cup of coffee, or check all your pensions in one easy place alongside your ISAs and current accounts.” The pensions dashboard prototype brings us a step closer to that goal, he said.

Kirby emphasised that when talking about the dashboard he is referring to the creation of multiple dashboards. “To realise the huge benefits of this technology, we cannot prescribe a single way for people to access their own data. Firms need to be able to innovate across a whole range of users’ needs. There is no monopoly for wisdom."

He said the dashboards may be single websites, plug-ins to your mobile banking app or components of complex robo-advice software. He added that there are many uses and incarnations of the dashboards that we are yet to imagine.

This vision of a one-stop financial platform has been echoed by one of the independent members of the pensions dashboard steering group. Speaking at the Pensions Age/ITM seminar last week, Finance and Technology Research Centre director Ian McKenna said: “Dashboards firstly will address pensions. We’re going to have all current DC schemes, all current DB schemes, state benefits as well, so everything in the pensions arena. And we’re doing pensions first because candidly, that’s the most complicated.

“But, I fully expect that we will, in time, come to all other forms of long-term savings vehicles, and medium-term savings vehicles, and it’s important to recognise the work that’s going on in parallel in the open banking, API project due to deliver at the beginning of next year, that is significant. I certainly have a view that we will, in time, see not just all savings products, but mortgages, life insurance, health care information, truly integrated to give the consumer a holistic figure and picture of their financial lives,” he said.

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