Pensions Talks Interview: Kim Gubler, Chair of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA)

Gubler, Chair of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA), Director at KGC Associates and Trustee Director at Smart Pensions Master Trust shared her insights on the evolving landscape of pensions administration. She provides guidance in the upcoming rollout of the pensions dashboard, emphasising the need for data quality and compliance. Kim also highlights the industry’s challenges in embracing digital transformation, the importance of proactive cyber-risk management, and the upcoming PASA initiatives.

1. The government is committed to delivering the pensions dashboard as soon as possible. TPR acknowledges that there is significant work involved in complying with pensions dashboards, and that a phased approach to connection with the dashboard should be maintained to allow pension savers to reap the benefits as soon as possible. What guidance would you give to trustees and scheme managers?

If there’s anything which could stop them from connecting, then fix it! They need to understand where they sit in their administrator’s connection project plan, it might be sooner than their connection date. The scheme’s data and extent of digitisation will influence their data matching policy, but administrators can give an expert view on what’s achievable and the data cleansing needed. If values can’t be shown, they need to know how the administrator will comply with the 3 and 10 day rules, and what they’re going to say to members. Remember they’re also responsible for MI reporting once they’re connected.

2. The pensions dashboard is great news for pension savers and will make it easier for people to keep track of their pension savings and plans all in one place. But, many argue that more work is needed to help savers engage more with their pension, and pensions dashboard is not the answer. What’s your view? And what more can the industry and government do to help savers engage more with their pensions?

Its multifaceted. Pension dashboards is part of the answer, as will be the small pots solution. But we must allow administrators to give broader support and guidance to pension savers and to go beyond compliance. Digitisation will allow data analytics and hyper personalisation, meaning people can be contacted when the messaging will be relevant to them. Industry can’t do this alone. We need to build greater financial resilience through whole of life financial education, of which pensions is simply a part. But connecting pensions as long term savings with side car, short term savings is definitely something we can do.

3. The pensions industry is lagging behind the wider financial services sector when it comes to keeping abreast of technological innovations. As part of a recent whitepaper, PASA produced a report on the digital administration of pension schemes. In the paper, you acknowledged that while many schemes consider digital admin important, some do not recognise the benefits or consider the potential benefits tangible. What challenges are you seeing from pension schemes? How can the industry help schemes to recognise the importance of digital admin?

Data is the challenge. It doesn’t matter how automated a scheme is if the underlying data is poor. Both data and technology are enablers. Without either, automation isn’t possible or won’t work. Often schemes are on legacy systems which aren’t interoperable and don’t talk to each other, so need to be moved onto modern platforms. Sadly, these improvements are often seen as costs, rather than investments. Similarly, digitising data and putting it online exposes the scheme to criticism if it’s not right. Dashboards will magnify any weaknesses here and will help drive change and allow ROI to be measured.

4. Cyber-risk is a real threat for pension schemes. What do PASA think government and pensions schemes could be doing to combat cybercrime and fraud?

The PSAG/TPR campaign video highlights the personal cost of scams. We need to protect pension savers from criminals, including reporting scams to Action Fraud enabling new scams to be identified. Signing TPR’s Scams Pledge gives another layer of protection. Administrators need to learn to communicate on a ‘human’ level so people believe us and not the criminals.  Our industry’s lack of connectivity has historically protected it from cybercrime. This is no longer true and is an area PASA is looking to develop support. We’ll also be looking at how breaches at a scheme level could potentially compromise wider financial data.

5. Looking to the future, what new initiatives are PASA working on to support the pensions admin industry? Note this is an opportunity to talk about some of the great work you’re doing with the industry.

PASA is working on:

• Launching Guidance on best practice identity management, exploring IM against key events along the pension lifecycle, focusing on events posing the greatest risk to schemes and savers – data changes and additions, transfers, retirements, deaths.
• Seeking to develop a Cybercrime reporting network to act as an early warning system for the industry.
• As part of DWP’s Small Pots Delivery Group, developing a solution which will result in better financial resilience.
• Driving the detail of connecting schemes to dashboards and looking to the future of what this will mean for pension savers.
• Continually developing collateral to support better run schemes.