Pensions industry needs urgent regulatory progress on dashboards

Girish Menezes, head of pensions administration at Isio, responds to the FCA’s consultation on the proposed regulatory framework for pension dashboard firms and the Pensions Dashboards Programme’s consultation on draft design standards.

She said: “We welcome these consultations, but note that until we have clarity on them, it will be very difficult for firms across the industry to adequately prepare. Time is tight for third party administrators, who must make a vital decision about how they connect with the dashboard ecosystem, either directly or via an ISP.

“Some pensions administrators will be connecting to the ecosystem as early as Q4 this year and most by Q1 next year. Many will be connecting via an ISP service, which provides the layer necessary to deal with the large number of queries that are being predicted. But administrators currently have very little visibility of what the user journey for the dashboard will look like, which means they will likely have to make critical decisions blind.

“For administrators, the decision on which ISP to connect with constitutes the beginning of a long-term partnership and significant investment. Firms won’t want to make this decision without regulatory certainty around how dashboards will operate, and therefore what kind of experience they will be required to deliver for pension scheme members. Further, they will have little or no time for adequate testing.

“With the dashboard going live later this year it is vital that the pensions industry has regulatory certainty as quickly as possible. Administrators need adequate time to onboard, test and learn with the fundamental systems that will underly the dashboard project. This will be critical to ensuring that they deliver something truly innovative and ultimately valuable to scheme members.”