This month, the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) entered its next phase as real-world testing got underway – giving a small number of people access to a live pensions dashboard, with real data, for the first time.
It’s a major milestone that brings the vision of a unified view of retirement savings closer to reality. Since auto-enrolment began in 2012, most people have built up multiple pensions – and keeping track of them isn’t always easy. The dashboard aims to change that by bringing together workplace, personal and state pensions in one secure, online place.
Like auto-enrolment, it has the power to transform how people engage with their retirement savings. Delivering it, though, is a complex undertaking that demands coordination and industry-wide collaboration.
Simple in theory. Technically ambitious (for some). And yet, absolutely essential.
That’s why, at Seccl, we’re proud to be part of the pensions dashboard ecosystem – and to have connected to it well ahead of our regulatory deadline.
Why it matters
According to the PDP, more than 10 million people are now saving into workplace pensions thanks to auto-enrolment. But around 12 million are still under-saving for later life – and many aren’t engaging with their pensions at all.
A 2022 PDP study found that 55% of UK adults hadn’t taken any action to engage with their pensions in the previous year. Meanwhile, the Pensions Policy Institute estimates there are 2.8 million ‘lost’pension pots worth a staggering £26.6 billion – pots that are not currently matched to their owners.
The dashboard aims to change that. By bringing together disparate pension data into a single, holistic view, it will boost awareness and understanding. Helping people take greater control of their retirement planning, reconnect with missing pots and make more confident, informed decisions about their financial future.
And it’s not just consumers who stand to gain. The dashboard also offers a real opportunity for the industry to modernise pension administration, reconnect with disengaged customers and lay the groundwork for better self-service and improved outcomes over the long term.
At Seccl, we’ve long believed that navigating pensions shouldn’t be hard work. That’s why, back in 2022, we built our own SIPP from the ground up – to give advisers and their clients a more intuitive, flexible and digital way to manage and plan for retirement. And it’s exactly why the pensions dashboard feels like such an important step forward.
What we did to get here
The Government’s pensions dashboard infrastructure relies on a Central Digital Architecture (CDA) – acting as the go-between for a person trying to find their pensions, and all the providers that have pension records. Every provider must ensure that data is discoverable, accurate and securely accessible through this central hub.
For us, this meant partnering with Equisoft and using their Fusion technology to connect securely to the government’s dashboard system and share the right data, in the right way. In doing so, we brought together data from thousands of SIPP clients and rigorously tested our connection to ensure everything worked exactly as it should. And we completed all this in record quick time, well ahead of our deadline – showing the speed with which we can adapt and respond to regulatory change.
Since March, we’ve supplied data monthly through robust, scalable processes that support the growing number of SIPPs we now manage on our technology – more than 60,000 (and counting).
What’s next: more real-world testing
The dashboard isn’t expected to launch to the public until October 2026 at the earliest. In the meantime, real-world testing begins – and we’ll be part of that too.
As one of the first tranche of connected providers, we’ll help shape a system that works for real people in the real world – ensuring it’s robust, user-friendly and ready to deliver on its promise.
Looking ahead
Connecting to the pensions dashboard is more than just a regulatory tick box. It’s a meaningful step toward a more modern, digital-first pensions infrastructure – bringing providers, regulators and service partners together with the shared goal of improving outcomes for pension savers.
It’s a vision that aligns closely with our own ambition to bring an outdated, heavily analogue industry kicking and screaming into the automated, digital present – one pension at a time.