Pension providers should be able to export dashboards’ data to better deliver guided retirement outcomes, L&G managing director of workplace savings, Katharine Photiou, has suggested.

Speaking at the Pensions UK Annual Conference, Photiou highlighted the challenge of connecting different ‘deliverables’ such as pensions dashboards and guided retirement.

“The dashboard is great because it's got all your pensions in one place [and yet] over here we've got guided retirement, which at the moment is a bit like having a blindfold on because we don't actually know what the member's got,” Photiou said.

“We don't know what [total pensions savings] the member's got, but we've got the data over here. So why can't we take an export from the dashboard to help us with the guided retirement journey?” she suggested.

“You might [also] need some targeted support on the way there. And, for targeted support, you have to be FCA registered, but we should make that available to master trusts as well. So, this is how to connect everything up in like a circle of life or, a relay where the baton has to keep moving on through these parts of the regulatory change,” Photiou added.

Instead of managing projects in silos, the idea of ‘ramping up’ and ‘ramping down’ of individual reforms has passed, Photiou said.

“I think change is like just the natural order of things now,” she explained. “This idea that you create a regulatory project, it has a finish line and you start the next one, it's all gone... [Now] you've absorbed one change and the next one's already arrived.”

Last month, the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) has published new guidance to help trustees, administrators and providers assess how ready they are to deliver guided retirement.

The new Guided Retirement: Operational Readiness Guidance, focuses on the practical steps schemes can take now to prepare for guided retirement.

PASA said the 2029 implementation date gives schemes more time to prepare, but warned significant operational changes may still be required.

The guidance covers possible changes including greater workflow automation, stronger system

integration and data flows, clearer accountability across organisations, appropriate controls around automated decisions and communications and support. It also includes a readiness checklist covering strategy, systems, data, governance, communications, risk and compliance and delivery planning.

The FCA’s final policy statement on guided retirement regulations is expected between July and September 2028.

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