Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) chief executive, Julian Mund, has called for the pensions industry to retain the positive aspects of digital working in the future.

Introducing the PLSA Investment Conference 2021, Mund said that digital engagement had allowed the association to interact with a more diverse group of members.

“The online digital world brings opportunity and is here to stay,” he stated. “I want to retain the openness that digital engagement has brought in the past year.”

Mund praised the industry the the innovation it had displayed during the Covid-19 pandemic, and said he wanted to “retain the innovative spirit”.

Looking back over the past 12 months, Mund detailed the steps that the PLSA and wider industry had taken to ensure that members’ needs were met.

Despite the short-term challenges, he commended the work done for longer-term measures, such as work contributing to the Pension Schemes Act, The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR’s) DB funding code and the pensions dashboards.

He also praised the work done at the onset and early states of the pandemic, including defending auto-enrolment and calling for flexibility from the regulators.

The PLSA’s six key policy areas were again outlined, with Mund noting that rapid change was “possible”, but that long-term change was the “goal”.

Mund concluded that although the PLSA had reached new audiences through the increased digital engagement, with half the people attending its Annual Conference in October 2020 ‘first timers’, he was hoping to return to live events “when it becomes possible again”.

“Nothing beats meeting you in person”, he said.

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