Pensions ‘dashboards’ littered with errors
Experts warn of ‘disaster’ after one in eight records are found to be linked to wrong address in database
A GOVERNMENT scheme to give savers a better understanding of their pensions could mislead millions of people because their records are incorrect or incomplete, it has emerged. According to a database of millions of pension records seen by credit checking firm Experian, one in eight pensions has the wrong address attached to it, while tens of thousands also have wrong names.
These inaccuracies threaten to derail the “pensions dashboard”, which will display the value of all of a saver’s pension pots in one place, making it easier for people to keep track of their retirement savings and investments.
But experts warned the scheme would be a “disaster” if the underlying data was inaccurate. Major errors could lead to people being shown other people’s pension information or being led to believe they have more or less in savings than the reality. Pension firms that accidentally share sensitive financial details with others could face hefty fines under new GDPR data protection rules.
This week, in a report on how the pension reforms are being used to exploit consumers, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City watchdog, said the pensions dashboard was “an excellent opportunity to improve consumer engagement with their pension savings”.
Tom Selby, a senior analyst at pension provider AJ Bell, said: “Ultimately the pensions dashboard will live or die on the quality of the data underpinning it. If it launched with large amounts of faulty information it would be an absolute disaster, so the Government needs to make sure any problems are rectified before the end of next year.”
Richard Howells, the director of pensions at Experian, said: “Pensions providers have work to do to ensure the correct data is shown to people on a pensions dashboard. Data quality is a challenge. We believe hundreds of thousands of records held by providers are missing correct addresses, first names or surnames, while many more have no postcodes. Errors like these could result in people being unable to pass validation to use the dashboard.”
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “Pension providers are and will remain responsible for ensuring the customer data they hold is up to date and accurate. If they send out inaccurate information they can be sanctioned …”
Nigel Peaple, the policy director at the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association, said the dashboard had the potential to make savers feel more in control of their retirement savings, but that the accuracy of the data was vital. He added: “We have long said that security of savers’ data is the most important aspect of the project and so have argued that strong regulation be applied to all dashboard providers.”
The pensions dashboard is meant to make it easier for savers who have multiple pots, perhaps because they have moved jobs several times, to keep track of them by showing them all on one page. The Government has committed to launching it by the end of 2019.
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