Home News, blogs and press releases PDP: steering group drives forward service for savers
 
Published by: Augusta Hajalie
Published: 25th September 2019 Update: 6th December 2022
 

Money and Pensions Service announces 10 appointments to represent consumers, fintechs and the pensions sector.

Ten people who will work on the practicalities of establishing pensions dashboards services and making them available for use by the general public are today being named by the Money and Pensions Service.

Pensions dashboards will ensure people throughout the UK have easy online access to key information about what pensions they have, who manages them and what they are worth in one place, revolutionising how people engage with their pensions throughout their lives.

Representing the interests of consumers and stakeholders within the pensions, financial services and fintech sectors, the new steering group will support the work of the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) which has been established within the Money and Pensions Service to take forward the creation of the technology that will enable dashboards.

The steering group members are:

The PDP followed a robust selection process, with applicants asked to provide written submissions demonstrating their expertise against selection criteria, as well as testimonials proving their leadership in the field.

Sir Hector Sants, Chair of the Money and Pensions Service welcomed the steering group appointments: “It is vital that people are equipped with the tools and knowledge to engage with their pensions and plan for retirement. This group represents a great blend of the expertise needed to ensure the successful delivery of revolutionary pensions dashboards.”

Chris Curry, Principal of the Pensions Dashboards Programme said: “The formation of the steering group signals another important step forward in this project. I look forward to working with the steering group members, who bring both expertise and the perspectives of their various sectors to ensure nothing is forgotten in the development of dashboards.

“Over the coming months, we will also be forming working groups to work alongside the steering group, where subject matter experts will provide input into the design of the service.”

Chris Curry, Principal of the Pensions Dashboards Programmes will chair the steering group, and Angela Pober, Implementation Director of the PDP will also be a member.

Following the first steering group meeting in October, the focus will be on setting out a roadmap for the delivery of the dashboards, providing strategic guidance on delivering the best customer experience for consumers, and determining what data the pensions industry will need to provide for dashboards to be operational.

-ENDS-

For media enquiries contact:
MaPS Press Office 020 8132 5284 / media@maps.org.uk
Mia Cochrane, Senior Press Officer 020 8132 4937 / mia.cochrane@maps.org.uk

Notes to editors

Steering group member biographies

Andrew Lowe
Andrew represents the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), the UK’s only chartered professional body dedicated to educating, developing and regulating actuaries. The IFoA has over 30,000 members and has long advocated pension dashboards.

Andrew brings nearly 20 years’ experience consulting on actuarial, administration and change matters in the pensions arena. As Director of Change and Data Solutions for Equiniti/MyCSP, he engages on solution design, delivery and commercial issues with senior stakeholders across the public and private sector.

Dominic Lindley
Dominic is an independent consultant with 15 years’ experience in consumer protection, pension and financial services issues and has experience as a trustee of a pension scheme. He has worked for the Consumer Panel, Which? and New City Agenda, delivering improvements for consumers. He has advised the Open Banking Implementation Entity and is a member of the Actuarial Council.  He has written two leading reports on Pensions Dashboards for Which? and the People’s Pension.

Francis Goss
Francis is a Board Director at specialist communications consultancy AHC, which advises organisations on effective strategies to engage their members with pensions and employee benefits. Francis has extensive expertise in pension communications, member engagement and technology innovation. Francis is also a Director Trustee of Engage for Success, the UK’s Employee Engagement Taskforce (launched by the Prime Minister in 2008), and a Trustee Director of Toybox, a charity helping street children around the world. He holds an LLB (Hons) in Law and a Diploma in employee motivation.

Kim Gubler
Kim is Chair of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA), which promotes and improves the quality of pensions administration services for UK pension schemes. She was involved in launching PASA’s administration industry standards and accreditation process.

Kim has more than 30 years’ experience of the pensions industry and its operation, and set up KGC associates in 2002, which is now acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading independent pension and management consultancies. While her experience covers both defined benefit and defined contribution, Kim is an acknowledged defined contribution pension specialist.  She is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and The Pensions Advisory Service, is Principle Examiner for Professionalism and Governance and is on the Examining Board. 

Nigel Peaple
Nigel is the Director of Policy & Research at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA). He is responsible for all the association’s policy work. Prior to PLSA, he was a Policy Fellow at the Department for Work and Pensions and before that Director of Policy at the Pensions Regulator.

Nigel has over 25 years’ experience of policy and public affairs roles across a range of government, EU and industry bodies. He was a founding Director of the Pensions Quality Mark. Nigel is a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute and recently represented the occupational pension sector on the Pension Dashboard Prototype Project.

Paddy Greene
Paddy is Head of Money and Consumer Rights Policy at Which? the largest consumer organisation in the UK, with more than 1.3 million members and supporters.

Which? has a long history of creating and shaping policy and campaigning on key consumer issues, including pensions. Which? campaigned for the auto-enrolment pensions charge cap, has advocated for greater protection in light of the pension freedom reforms, and has been involved in discussions around the need for a pensions dashboard since 2015.

Samantha Seaton
Samantha is CEO at the Open Banking platform Moneyhub. Moneyhub’s aim is to change people’s thoughts and feelings about their own financial world for the better, enabling effortless money management and informed decision-making for people’s longer-term finances, throughout working life into retirement.

Previously Sam held key senior roles at Momentum, e-Value and Towers Watson where she was involved in leading the development of digital financial planning solutions. Throughout her career Sam has strived to make a genuine difference to consumers’ financial wellbeing by growing customer relationships. Sam is an advisory board member for First Home Coach and a digital board member for Newbury Building Society.

Romi Savova
Romi is the founder and CEO of PensionBee, the UK’s leading online pension provider, helping customers to find and combine their old pensions into one new online plan. In 2018 PensionBee became the first pension provider to utilise Open Banking, enabling customers to see their live pension balance alongside their current account balance in popular money management apps.

Romi has played a key role in advancing consumer standards in the pensions industry, from reducing transfer times to becoming the first provider to introduce Simpler Annual Statements. Before founding PensionBee, Romi worked for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Benchmark, holding roles in investment banking, risk management and financial technology. Romi received an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated from Emory University.

Will Lovegrove
Will is the founder and former CEO of Sytemsync Solutions Ltd, creators of pensionsync: a cloud data-integration platform deployed across the payroll/pensions market. Systemsync Solutions was the first and only organisation to provide an API-enabled data integration service between the UK payroll and pensions industries.

Will has previously won grants from Innovate UK, participated within the FCA’s innovation sandbox programme and co-chaired industry roundtables in the House of Lords with Systemsync’s chair, Baroness Altmann, CBE. In 2019 Will was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals. Before founding Systemsync Solutions, Will was founder and managing director of Release Mobile Ltd, which provides software application engineering services and remains a director of the company. Will has a PhD in Computer Science, University of Nottingham.

Yvonne Braun
Yvonne is Director of Policy, Long Term Savings and Protection, at the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The ABI is the voice of the UK’s world leading insurance and long-term savings industry with over 250 member companies, including most household names and specialist providers. 

Yvonne has over 20 years’ experience in financial services as a policy maker, lobbyist, regulator and lawyer. As a member of the ABI’s Executive Team, Yvonne leads on pensions, protection and social care policy work, oversees the data and analytics unit and is the executive sponsor for diversity and inclusion. Yvonne has directed the organisation’s pensions strategy for 10 years and was responsible for leading and directing the cross-industry Pensions Dashboard Prototype Project.

Steering group membership reviews
The membership of the group will be reviewed regularly to ensure that it continues to be fit for purpose. Other individuals with specialist knowledge may be invited to attend relevant Steering Group meetings on an ad hoc basis.Pensions Dashboards Working Groups
The PDP will be forming working groups over the coming months. These will be the key forums for representatives from different sectors to be directly involved in developing and testing the functionality and ongoing governance of the pensions dashboards. Find further information about Working Groups.

The role of MAPS in delivering Pensions Dashboards
Following the Department for Work and Pensions feasibility study and consultation on pensions dashboards, MAPS has been asked to take a leading role. MAPS will lead the delivery of the infrastructure to support pensions dashboards, working with a delivery group made up of stakeholders from across the industry, consumer groups, regulators and government. The group will be accountable to the MaPS board, and MaPS is in turn accountable to the Department for Work and Pensions.

About the Money and Pensions Service
The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) vision is people making the most of their money and pensions.

The new organisation brings together the free services delivered by the Money Advice Service, The Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise.

The Arms-Length organisation is sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions, with a joint commitment to ensuring that people have access and guidance to the information they need to make effective financial decisions over their lifetime. The organisation also engages with HM Treasury, which is responsible for policy on financial capability and debt advice.

Working hand-in-hand with stakeholders throughout the UK, the Money and Pensions Service ensures that money and pensions guidance is available to those that need it, adapting to people’s changing needs throughout their lives, offering services and appointments over the telephone, online and in person where appropriate.

For further information for stakeholders, they should visit the Money and Pensions Service website www.moneyandpensionsservice.org.uk

Consumers can continue to access free guidance about their money and pensions via the following websites and help lines:

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk / 0800 138 7777

www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk / 0800 011 3797

https://www.pensionwise.gov.uk/en / 0800 138 3944