DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION BY INTERESTED PARTIES
This page provides background on the UK’s overall dashboards ecosystem to make clear the context for, and importance of, the Pension Dashboards Operators Coalition (PDOC).
What are pensions dashboards?
Pensions dashboards are apps and websites which enable you to search for, and see, your different pensions together on your phone.
Many countries around the world have developed pensions dashboards. In the UK, it’s been a long-term policy development, with many different research reports evidencing the strong demand amongst consumers for secure online services which show people all their different pensions together.
Going into 2024, various different parts of the UK government are working together to enable dashboards to be developed and launched as soon as possible:
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has made Regulations enabling dashboards
- His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) has laid draft legislation to make “Operating a pensions dashboard” a new regulated activity
- The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has consulted on draft Conduct of Business (COB) Rules for pensions dashboard operators
- The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP)* team is co-ordinating the delivery of the technology “ecosystem” – see below.
* The PDP is part of the Money & Pensions Service (MaPS), one of the 13 agencies / other bodies of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The UK pensions dashboards ecosystem
A whole “ecosystem” of different technology components is required to make dashboards work. An infographic of this ecosystem is available on Moneyhub’s website (plus an explanatory video):
There will be multiple “front-end” dashboards
Layer 2 of the above infographic represents dashboards, specifically:
- A single non-commercial dashboard: the MoneyHelper dashboard from MaPS
- Several commercial dashboards: these dashboards are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are referred to in legislation (and on this website) as Qualifying Pensions Dashboard Services (QPDSs).
Industry bodies supporting the ecosystem
In the data supply layers 6 and 5 of the ecosystem – representing pension schemes, providers, administrators and integrated service providers (ISPs) – industry bodies such as the PLSA and ABI, and in particular PASA, are co-ordinating industry-wide collaboration with the PDP.
But in data display layer 2, there is no such body, hence the idea for PDOC, the Pensions Dashboard Operators Coalition.