Sharing point-in-time Defined Contribution fund values in a single place poses enormous challenges, but when compared to doing something similar for DB benefits, it doesn’t take long to appreciate that even that requirement itself needs clarity. The value of a DB benefit varies greatly according to which point in time is being communicated –at ‘date of exit’ means it’s already out of date. Showing ‘at retirement’, or any time you choose between the two, means factoring in assumptions and running calculations.

Calculations mean relying on data, and one of the great certainties at this early stage is that there is an awful lot of UK pensions data that isn’t held in a fit state to run even standard calculations, without preparatory analysis and cleansing work.

I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of colleagues recently deliberating Dashboard, getting increasingly excited about the possibilities and then getting increasingly nervous about the data implications of what we’d love it to achieve. But one thing is for sure, for Dashboard to be a success, DB is the ultimate challenge, and those Schemes that can categorically say their data is “Dashboard Ready” will be leading the way in the greatest data and information challenge the industry has faced.

As seen on LinkedIn: https://goo.gl/8JqPO0