Admin is the window into your scheme for members; so, it is crucial it is up to scratch. As your scheme changes, your administrators must be informed to see if they have the recourse space. Yet this is not always the case.

So where does admin stand in the "pension scheme food chain"?

Admin has been on the agenda seriously for roughly the last fifteen years, only to be pushed aside by many. With GMP equalisation, dashboards, Endgame in sight for many and a recruitment shortage, schemes can't afford to push admin to the side any longer.

This session will address:

• Improving administration process and how it’s included in future-planning
• Utilising your admin and pension scheme data to support strategic goals
• Examples of different schemes and how they set their strategies out
• Recognise how good admin can benefit the budget
  

Pensions dashboards represent the single biggest transformation in the UK’s pensions space for a generation. When they are available to the public, it is hoped they will usher in a new era for savers, increasing engagement with their retirement planning and improving their financial wellbeing.

But with some firms having millions of members’ data to cleanse and format before connecting, plus other landmark initiatives hitting the industry this year in the form of Consumer Duty, teams are being stretched further than ever before.

In this talk, Lisa Lyon and Jonathan Hawkins will take the audience on a tour of what the end-to-end pensions dashboards onboarding journey looks like in practice.

Jonathan and Lisa will also cover off:

• Defining accurate data, what to look out for and how to fix issues
• The importance of following the Code to Connection and what can happen if things go array
• Planning for possible matches, mitigating data breaches, improving member experience and how that will affect their already stretched resources
• How Consumer Duty will impact member experience and customer support function
• Continuous data cleansing and its positive knock-on consequences

The expectations and demands of administration continue to increase. Yet the pool of talent available to help address the increasing workloads is already stretched.

How do we ensure our brilliant people don’t burn out? What approaches can we take to avoid a crisis, yet continue to make progress on member experience, engagement and outcomes?

This session will address:

• Supply & demand – why is there a problem?
• Embracing digital opportunities to reduce reliance on key people
• Broadening the talent pool – how, where and when will people choose pensions as a career?
  

Members are demanding more from Trustees. They are benchmarking pension administration against their banks, shopping apps and online retail experience. At the same time, Trustees are asking more from their administrators to help deliver strategy.

With so much on their to-do-list and finite resources to deliver, how can administrators keep pace with the demands of their clients? Girish Menezes and Sam Coombes will explore what members are really looking for from their administrators and how trustees and pensions managers can help administrators rise to the challenge to meet those expectations.

In the rapidly evolving world of pensions, it's crucial for Trustees and administrators to ensure they have clean and accurate member data so that they’re prepared for pressing issues such as GMP equalisation and de-risking strategies.

This session will address three questions:

• What steps are needed to ensure data is clean, accurate, and ready for now (never mind the future!)
• What solutions are there available to enable schemes to push on with GMP equalisation?
• What data tactics should be deployed in preparation for de-risking?

The ever-changing circumstances of members in a pension scheme, in addition to significant industry and regulatory requirements, for example in relation to the Pensions Dashboard and Consumer Duty, create many challenges for pensions providers. Insufficient management of data and identity can lead to billions of pounds of funds and entitlements either being forgotten, mistakenly overpaid, or worse, fraudulently withdrawn, alongside reputational damage and regulatory consequences in the way of fines and costly remediation. Furthermore, ensuring customer data is kept accurate and up to date allows schemes to proactively communicate to members and react to the changing circumstances at both an individual and industry level. Periodic screening leaves changes undetected in the intervening period, with cost and risk implications.

Learn more about how you can mitigate financial losses and fraud risks effectively with proactive, ongoing monitoring and make sure your data quality is continually maintained to the highest levels.

This session will address:

• Preserving and maintaining the quality and reliability of your common data, to improve member experience.
• How ongoing monitoring aids compliance with consumer duty obligations
• Ensuring new member data is instantly aligned for single customer view and perpetual KYC
• Augmenting and enriching customer contact data to improve your ability to engage with members online

Following a statement from Laura Trott on the 2nd March, proposed staging dates have been delayed. Despite this, momentum for the preparation of the pensions dashboard is expected to continue to gather pace, and has been described as "essential" by Trott. All considered, it's no surprise the pensions dashboard continues to be on everyone's radar. The first connection deadline was 31st August 2023. However, Trott stated that additional time was required "to deliver the complex technical solution to enable the connection of pension providers and schemes." With deadlines pushed back, what can schemes now expect, and how can they best prepare?

This session will address:

• How can schemes keep their momentum going now the delay has been announced?
• What should schemes be doing now, and what are the expectations of trustees?
• How far can schemes go to be sure they are ready to connect to dashboards?
• What do we know about the timelines?
• What does a reset actually mean?