Spotlight 
Video 
Blog We put a man on the moon more than 50 years ago, yet many pension schemes still struggle to provide basic information online. For in-house teams, the challenge isn’t ambition – it’s data. Poor-quality records, fragmented systems, and outdated processes hold back progress. But with the right pension software and modern pension management solutions, pension scheme administrators can overcome these barriers and achieve real efficiencies.
Mantle’s Graeme Riddoch discusses how clean, digitised data combined with a robust pension platform makes automation, self-service, and even compliance with pensions dashboards not just possible, but practical.
Poor quality data
We put a man on the moon back in the 1960’s, so why can’t we get basic pension information on-line?
One reason is our old friend poor data quality. It’s the Cinderella of the trustee agenda. Those are words I never thought I’d put together in the same sentence.
The point is that very few pension schemes have data that’s as good as it could be. Getting data in shape is too often seen as an expense rather than a benefit. I’ve never experienced any real push back on the need for fit for purpose data until it comes to paying for it!
How good is good?
There’s also the question of how good does your data quality need to be? Well, I guess there’s a spectrum. At one end a scheme can limp along running lots of manual processes. This creates unnecessary expense and means slows service to the members and no question of on-line. Getting a decent data cut to the actuary can also be a bit of a battle.
At the other end of the spectrum there is squeaky clean data, good enough to transact with a buyout provider. That’s often the point that data gets to the top of the agenda. With an overheated buyout market, insurers can be picky and a scheme with holes in the data will be lucky to find any interest.
In between there’s a spectrum, and how good your data needs to be depends on what you want to do.
Getting by
It’s surprising how many schemes operate on a hand to mouth basis and quite often poor data is the root cause.
So, what does poor data look like? Well aside from the obvious things like gaps and missing information it’s also how and where it’s held.
A paper record can be accurate but fails the test on accessibility. Many schemes hold the bulk of their data on their pensions administration platform but may also have paper records or data sitting on spreadsheets.
Whilst this approach may work now it’s limiting and will soon run foul of the Pensions Dashboard requirements. More of that later.
The art of the possible
Another reason that data doesn’t routinely get addressed is that many trustees are unaware of what you can do with fully “digitised” clean data. For example, it’s entirely possible to automate 100% of benefit calculations on a modern Defined Benefit pension administration platform. If you can feed the calculation engine with clean data that becomes a game changer.
Member self-serve for example. This has the potential to be transformational on two fronts. Members get the convenience of a modern financial services product. Whilst on-line won’t be for everyone it’s the direction of travel for just about everything apart from haircuts!
The other tangible benefit is the cost saving. Allowing members to view their own benefits, update personal details and generally look after themselves takes out substantial cost.
In the DB space in particular, I think trustees aren’t aware of what’s possible with good data and a good administration system. DC is a much simpler beast underpinned by more contemporary systems, but it’s still far from perfect.
The Dashboard driver
Now there’s the Pensions Dashboard. It’s been rumbling along in the background for so long that most people have discounted it. Well, the news is that’s it now law and has a rollout timetable and guess what? For many schemes to meet their legal requirements there will be a need to improve the data.
Not rocket science
The dashboard is an ambitious project not because its rocket science, but because of the inability of many schemes to meet its requirements.
In essence all it is seeking to do initially is allow someone to search across all UK schemes to find out where their pensions sit and to view basic information. To do that a scheme will need to accept a message from a centralised identity service and see if the data items match with any of their scheme records. The finder data items are basic stuff, Name, DOB address and NINO. So, two problems. Missing or incorrect records. We talked about that already.
Finder data that isn’t “digitised.” Losing the jargon the data needs to be accessible in such a way that when the request from the finder service is sent the admin system is capable of receiving it and interrogating all the member records.
The real killer for many DB schemes will be to return an estimated retirement income to a Dashboard. It’s a lot simpler for DC but some schemes may still struggle.
For DB the scheme will have to calculate and return an Estimated Retirement Income at NRA.
So back to where we started. Data good enough to automate benefit calculations and an administration platform capable of serving them up. It’s not rocket science, but it will be a giant leap for some schemes.
How Mantle can help
For pension scheme administrators, the future of member engagement and operational efficiency depends on moving beyond “getting by.” Clean data and the right pension administration software don’t just make compliance easier – they open the door to automation, cost savings, and a far better member experience.
Take the next step today: contact us enquiries@mantleservices.com or download our latest collateral to see how we can help you achieve smarter, more efficient pension management.
