The Association of British Insurers (ABI) is taking the Pensions Dashboard project to the next phase, after successfully developing a prototype on behalf of HM Treasury.

The Pensions Dashboard is a Government initiative that will enable people to view all their pensions pots in one online location.

Its objective is for the service to be available to consumers by 2019, and for it to be offered by a range of different organisations rather than by a single, central service.

The ABI has been managing the initial phase of the project, to develop a prototype, and it will now lead an 'interim phase' of the project, which it says will maintain momentum of the development of the service.

This initial phase of the project finishes at the end of May and the general election means there will be a break before the Government can resume development of the service.

ABI says while there's been good progress on the technology for dashboards, there is still a lot to do to understand consumer needs in detail, the costs and benefits for all parts of the industry, and to further develop data standards for how a future service would be delivered.

The interim phase of the project will have four main aims: to establish a cost benefit analysis for the wider industry, to research customer needs and establish what features people are likely to find most useful; to establish the requirements and costs for a secure end-to-end service between data providers and data consumer; and to further develop the technical data standards for all firms and work with the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) on agreeing a Code of Conduct in line with requirements from The Pensions Regulator.

Yvonne Braun, director of long-term savings and protection policy at the ABI, said the project was critical for the pensions sector and has the potential to revolutionise how people interact with their pension savings.

"The project to develop a prototype Pensions Dashboard has shown that technological challenges can be overcome, and now the project contributors are keen to move on to the next important phases of the project," she said.

The announcement has been welcomed by some in the pensions industry, including workplace pension provide Now: Pensions.

Adrian Boulding, director of policy for NOW: Pensions, said: "In today's digitally connected world it should be a basic right for everyone to go to a Pensions dashboard and see all the value of all their pension savings in one place."

First published 18.05.2017

Lindsay.sharman@wilmingtonplc.com