Pension savers’ data must be easily accessible in a digital format and to an industry standard to ensure the success of the pensions dashboards, Hymans Robertson has said.

In response to the Pension Dashboards Programme (PDP) call for input on data standards, Hymans Robertson co-head of digital strategy for financial services, Scott Finnie, stated that it “cannot be acceptable” for members’ pension records to only be stored physically.

To enable individuals to retrieve information on their pensions online, Finnie recommended that digital data access should be standardised.

Furthermore, he called for the data to be accurate and accessible in a secure and easy fashion.

“Customers and advisers must be able to access this data electronically, within just a matter of days, and without the need for wet signatures,” Finnie added.

“Data standards and security are vital to the pension dashboards’ successful delivery. They will enable it to work effectively, help solve the issue of ‘orphaned pensions’ and also allow better guidance to customers across the financial services industry.”

He noted that too many people are not saving effectively for retirement, and the financial advice needed to solve the issue is not “accessible or practical for the masses”.

To overcome this, Finnie called for digital guidance to be more readily available to carry savers though the accumulation phase until they need traditional financial advice at the point of retirement when a major decision is needed.

However, Finnie warned access to near complete customer data would be required to offer digital guidance effectively.

The lack of ready access to complete data had been an “unnecessary barrier” to enabling savers to achieve good retirement outcomes for “far too long”, according to Finnie.

“Lower cost advice could be available to more people, those who really need it, if pensions data was complete, digital and accessible in an easy to understand form for advisers,” he added.

“Without rapid progress on ensuring every customer’s pension record is accurate and accessible digitally, the pensions dashboards will not be able to succeed and the benefits to advisers and consumers won’t be achieved.

“But for it to work well it is important that standards and technology requirements are set as quickly as possible.

“This will enable those pension administrators and providers, who have to deliver the data, enough time to get it established and for the needs for any data cleansing to be agreed with pension trustees. These are the biggest tasks ahead for pension administrators and providers.”

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