Pensions in Budget 2016: Government urged to hurry up on pensions dashboard plans, after consumer group discovers those approaching retirement are not sure of how much they have saved
A consumer interest group has today called on government to speed up its plans to introduce a pensions dashboard after discovering that many of those approaching retirement have little or no idea how much they have saved.
According to figures from Which?, almost half (47 per cent) of employees aged over 50 with a personal pension are not confident in how much they have saved up for retirement, while one in five (21 per cent) has never checked how much they have in their pension pots.
Over a third (37 per cent) said they find it difficult to keep track of their pension pots, 34 per cent said they found the process time-consuming and 21 per cent said they weren't sure how to find out the details of what pots of savings they had.
"Deciding on a retirement income is one of the most complex financial decisions people face, but it can be difficult to find how much money you have built up over your working life," said Richard Lloyd, executive director at Which?. "A pensions and savings dashboard would go a long way to providing people with a complete picture of their retirement fund and, in turn, help them make the right choices.
"We are calling on the government to use the Budget to push ahead with this idea and help people to secure better retirement income."
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Also supporting the introduction of a pensions dashboard, Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, added: "Turning the pension dashboard into reality will be a massive undertaking, and to make this happen the government needs to work closely with the pension industry."
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said:
Everyone who has saved into a pension should be able to locate all their pension savings in order to make well informed decisions about their retirement.
Our free online pensions tracing service is available to help people find any missing retirement savings. Any additional steps from industry to support this would be welcome.
Last year, HM Revenue & Customs announced it was rolling out online Personal Tax Accounts in a bid to give people a real-time overview of their tax position.