The power of data science

Ros Altmann, former UK pensions minister, has spoken of the need to “make pensions digital”. The Department of Work and Pensions’ Pensions Dashboard aims to do just that, by collecting and curating information about members’ multiple defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pension pots in a single, digital location.

Such initiatives are in response to the difficulties that members, scheme managers and trustees face when it comes to managing scheme and member data.

Many pension schemes store a large amount of static and individualised member data. This is difficult to access, incomplete or inconsistent, and stored in multiple formats – PDFs, spreadsheets and others. Schemes struggle to analyse their data, develop sample user personas, and make predictions about future trends and behaviours, let alone support members in improving their pension choices to improve outcomes.

This article explains the steps Legal & General has taken to alleviate the issues schemes and their members are facing through a cloud-based web platform which brings together member and scheme data into one place, with timely updates. The dashboard allows for an easy digital overview, but also presents opportunities for benchmarking and forward-looking projections of requirements to facilitate better retirement outcomes.