Pension schemes have been urged to use the delay of pension dashboards to get their data ‘dashboard-ready’, after research from LCP suggested that schemes could use data matching techniques to make dramatic improvements in the quality of their member data.

The report, undertaken in partnership with Digidentity and Transunion, found that member data was accurate for about five out of six active members, but just over half (58 per cent) of deferred members.

The biggest category of discrepancy was on address information, in particular where the address held by the defined benefit (DB) scheme appeared to be out of date and where a new address was available.

In particular, it found that, "not surprisingly", a higher percentage of deferred members than active members had incorrect address data, at 16 per cent compared to 5 per cent, although even amongst active members around one in 20 had moved house and not notified the scheme.

In addition to this, around one in 10 deferred members had no address match but could be matched (generally uniquely) purely on the basis of name and date of birth against a person showing on TransUnion’s records.

The data matching exercise also showed a large number of smaller discrepancies on address data held by the scheme, including around 200 members with missing postcodes which could be added, and a further 200 where postcodes were held by not correct.

In light of the findings, and the importance of addresses for data matching with pension dashboards, LCP argued that small ‘tidying up’ could greatly reduce the number of partial matches between user data and scheme data that would require further work to resolve.

LCP partner, Steve Webb, stated: “The process of preparing for pensions dashboards could have a huge spin-off benefit by leading to a step change in the quality of pension scheme data.

“Both DB schemes and DC schemes will have data issues, sometimes relating to the lack of regular contact with members, but also because of inaccuracies in data supplied by employers.

"This research shows that even a relatively simple one-off exercise can lead to a major improvement in scheme data with a wide range of benefits for pension schemes and providers as well as members”.

Digidentity senior business development manager, Jonathan Evans, also stressed the importance of digital identities in an increasingly online world, arguing that time spent now getting data cleansed and kept up to date will reap dividends when dashboards go live.

"Where schemes can get their data in shape they will find that the process of data matching will work far more smoothly when dashboards go live," he explained.

Adding to this, TransUnion director of diversified markets, Adam Gillott, highlighted the research as affirmation of the importance of using robust and actionable data and insights to support evolution within the pensions sector and ensure consumers can fully benefit from the new Pensions Dashboard Programme once it is available.

“Harnessing credit data from information providers like TransUnion makes it possible to create a single customer view, by tracing the same identity across multiple policies, even where circumstances such as name or address have changed over time," he continued.

"This aligns with the aim of the new dashboards, so that it’s possible to consolidate various pension schemes in one easy-to-use place.”

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