DWP has released a written ministerial statement that affects the connection deadline for pensions dashboards.
Additional guidance will be published in due course.

The pensions dashboards ecosystem

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A pensions dashboard will show a user their pensions information online, securely and all in one place. To make this work, multiple parties and technical services need to be connected – in what we’re referring to as an ecosystem. The pensions dashboards ecosystem encompasses dashboards themselves, find and view interfaces, and the central digital architecture.  

 

The ecosystem components

Pensions dashboards

Dashboards will enable anyone who has a UK pension not in payment (not currently paying out, annuitised or in drawdown) to be able to view their pensions information. They will present information from UK-based pension providers, including the State Pension.

Dashboard providers must be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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Pension providers
and schemes

Pension providers and schemes must ensure their data is accurate and digitally available before connecting to the pensions dashboards ecosystem. They may develop their own interface or use a third party or ISP to connect.

The pensions dashboards standards provide the rules and controls that will facilitate the ongoing connection to the ecosystem.

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Pension finder service

The pension finder service is the technology that sends out an instruction to all pension providers and schemes to search for a user’s pension. It has no user interface and receives data from the consent and authorisation service, before sending it to pension providers and schemes. Pension providers and schemes’ find interfaces will acknowledge each find request.

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Consent and authorisation service

The consent and authorisation service manages user authentication, oversees consents and permissions, and allows users to grant access to view their pensions information through dashboards. It features an interface for users to enter details and give permission to search for pensions, which is then passed to the pension finder service.

If a matching pension is found, the consent and authorisation service manages access to the information in line with the authorisation policies set by the user. No pension information is stored.

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Identity service

The identity service proves the user is who they say they are, to be able to access the service.

The identity provider validates the user’s first name, last name and date of birth, before accessing pension entitlements. Additional information like address, National Insurance Number, email, and phone number may be provided but not necessarily validated by the identity service.

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Governance register

The governance register supports the monitoring of compliance across the ecosystem. It tracks all software elements and logs their usage.

The information gathered through the governance register allows the traceability of transactions, and measures reporting volume and success rates of finding pensions. It also monitors each component and its usage patterns for security purposes.

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Find and view interfaces

The pensions dashboards ecosystem enables the exchange of data between pension providers and schemes and dashboards, allowing users to view their pensions information online in a clear and simple way.

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