Zarah ChoudharyUK pensions holders are struggling to manage multiple pensions pots, but dashboards could represent a turning point for member engagement, new research reveals.
Bravura surveyed 2,000 workplace pensions holders to uncover the current state of member engagement and understand how consumers plan on interacting with dashboards as the industry approaches the first connect deadline in April 2025.
More than half (52%) of workplace pension holders felt overwhelmed managing multiple pension pots, but those aged between 25 and 34 struggled the most (64%).
With auto-enrolment (AE) introduced in 2012 and responsible for creating an estimated 10 million pension savers, only 33% of those aged 55 and above faced the same challenges.
Eight in 10 (82%) – or more than 16 million people – planned to use dashboards when launched.
Of those planning to use a pensions dashboard service, 76% said they would have a positive impact when planning for their retirement, and 60% expected to find a lost or forgotten pension.
In addition to find and viewing their pensions information (50%), respondents were also interested in using dashboards to monitor pension contributions (45%), estimate their total balance at retirement age, and stay updated on the performance of their pension investments (42%).
Longer term, if pensions dashboards were able to provide services to help better manage their retirement money, 36% said they would like to see insight tools – calculators, estimators and analysers.
More than three in 10 (31%) would be interested in consolidating pensions via dashboards.
Jonathan Hawkins, propositions lead, EMEA at Bravura, said: “Dashboards are just around the corner and they couldn’t come at a better time for the public.
“Aside from helping pension savers who are struggling to manage multiple pension pots, pensions dashboards could open up a world of possibilities for pension providers to increase the level of targeted support and personalisation for different demographics.
“The potential popularity of dashboards means that all eyes will be on the industry when dashboards are open to the public.
“Whilst dashboards are federated by design and should handle surges in demand from potentially millions of calls for data.
“However any dashboard user action beyond ‘passive monitoring’ risks incapacitating providers with large volumes of requests that require manual intervention – such as correction of errors, calculations, transfers, consolidation, or even simple requests for extra information.
“If providers are to turn dashboards into an opportunity to grow and better support their savers, many will need to invest in their underlying technology infrastructure to finally do away with the inefficient and messy patchwork of systems that have built up over decades.”
