Pensions Minister, Torsten Bell, has reiterated the government's commitment to private sector pensions dashboards, with industry polling revealing that the majority of professionals involved with the pensions dashboards process are considering private sector dashboard opportunities.

Speaking at the Money and Pensions Service’s latest Pensions Dashboards Town Hall event, attended by Pensions Age, Bell suggested that “there is also an important role for private sector dashboards to reach people in different places.”

“There are lots of places where people already have access to their financial information and where they are used to engaging digitally with their access, and that's a very good thing,” he continued.

The Minister also confirmed that the government intends to keep the industry informed on progress around private sector dashboards, stating that it will share timings and learnings from the ongoing user testing to help inform this work.

This commitment was also reiterated by a number of other key figures involved in pensions dashboards, as PDP senior responsible owner, Iain Patterson, said that whilst work on the MoneyHelper Dashboard has been prioritised, the PDP also remains committed to work on private sector dashboards, with much of this already underway.

The PDP confirmed that it has started work with its regulator partners, the Department for Work and Pensions, and external stakeholders including many of those considering providing a dashboard in the future.

This included a series of ‘pre-discovery events’ to understand what work is needed and how industry plays a role in getting us to private sector dashboards.

This work revealed that, despite a strong appetite for private sector dashboards, there is nervousness that private sector dashboards may not happen, with greater certainty needed to be able to plan and manage expectations of their leadership, secure funding and resources etc, and build and test their solutions.

Indeed, this attitude was also clear in the questions asked by audience members, as independent dashboards consultant, Richard Smith, emphasised that there needs to be a clear business case for organisations to be able to invest in the work needed to prepare for private sector pensions dashboards.

There was also clear evidence of the appetite for private sector dashboards, as polling from the audience revealed that the vast majority (78 per cent) of attendees are interested in establishing a private sector dashboard, with 39 per cent stating yes, and 39 per cent responding maybe, and just 21 per cent stating that they aren’t interested at all.

Given this, Patterson acknowledged the need for further assurances about notice periods, engagement and future timelines so they can develop internal business cases, as well as further improvements in the connection journey.

“We know that all the constituent elements, including connection and testing, audit, and FCA authorisation, could add up to a long process and we’re doing work internally and with Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and DWP to look at how we can support testing and how we can streamline the end-to-end process,” he stated.

The ongoing MoneyHelper Dashboard user testing is expected to inform this, as Patterson stressed that “we've learned a lot around the dashboards process with MoneyHelper. We want to refine that now, and we want to make that as simple, as safe as possible”.

“What I want to emphasise though, is that all the other areas of work on dashboards within the PDP and MoneyHelper teams are designed to ensure progress on private sector dashboards," he stated.

“The experience of connecting providers and schemes, and MoneyHelper Dashboard, is the foundation of the work we need to do to develop standards and the connection process for private sector dashboards.”

To further inform this work, he also confirmed that the PDP is intending to engage with potential providers in the near future.

In addition to this, Patterson revealed that the PDP is looking to explore the possibility of providing technical testing for private sector dashboards towards the end of this year.

---