Currently there is over £31bn sitting in around three million lost pension pots. While under-saving for retirement has long been argued to be a ‘ticking time bomb’ for savers, in the coming years the lost pots issue is set to be another. That is, of course, unless the dashboard roll out is an overwhelming success.
Solutions to the lost pots epidemic are sorely needed.
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Our latest research shows that younger workers are likely to accumulate more pension pots over the coming years which risks worsening the lost pots issue. Three in ten (30%) people aged 18-34 have already had three or more jobs in their careers and are therefore likely to have multiple pension pots whilst a fifth (17%) plan to move to new roles every few years compared to just 2% of workers aged over 55.
It’s vital that savers can locate lost pots giving them more control over their savings and maximise retirement outcomes.
Raindrop initially offered a personal pension, primarily aimed at self-employed workers – however, we quickly realised that many of our customers struggled to track down their old pots. This led to us pivoting our offering to create a pension finding service used by providers including AJ Bell, Monzo and Standard Life to help their customers locate pots and then consolidate their pensions. The service is offered through a white-label basis or an API integration. We’ve already located over £440m in lost pension savings across almost 40,000 pots.
Pensions dashboard challenges
Having offered a pension solution ourselves, we fully understand the challenges providers face, and this has been integral in designing a solution and technology infrastructure to meet the needs of our clients. It has also provided insight into the challenges the government’s pensions dashboard may face, how to maximise its impact and how fintech can support pension providers and government initiatives in supporting savers.
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By GlobalDataA big issue is timing. While October 2026 is the connection deadline, legislation states that there needs to be an announcement at least six months before public launch, and this announcement is unlikely to happen until after the deadline, meaning the full launch may not be until March 2027 or later.
The government has also announced that it will focus on the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) dashboard before allowing for more widespread commercial dashboards.
Accuracy, consolidation & engagement
Given the complexity of locating and consolidating different pension pots, it’s likely that the dashboard will struggle to match all previous pots to an individual user. This is in part owing to a lack of quality data as the UK does not have one standard data verification method. With pension providers possessing huge amounts of data over a period of decades, verifying the accuracy of data and comparing it to current information is likely to be an issue, especially if people have changed address or phone numbers without notifying their pension provider. And given the low levels of engagement most people have with their pension, this is likely to be the case for millions of people.
Without accurate data, the success of any pensions dashboard is going to be limited.
The dashboard also won’t be able to support pension pot consolidation so the onus will remain on individuals to go through the arduous process of contacting numerous pension providers to transfer these pots, leaving a key issue unresolved.
Pensions and fintechs sectors must collaborate
Collaboration across the pensions and fintech industry can tackle this challenge – the power of partnerships can allow fintech solutions to provide the tech needed to support consolidation whilst simplifying the process is key to empowering savers to bring their pots together.
Consumer engagement is also likely to be a huge barrier to the government dashboard. In other markets where a central pension dashboard is used, engagement rates are fairly low. For example, in some European markets, an average of only 37% of working age adults engage with these platforms.
However, the picture may be different with commercial dashboards. In Norway, there were 32 million pension tracing requests through commercial apps during 2023 compared to under a million through the government’s online service.
This suggests commercial dashboards and private pensions tracing platforms must play a key role in the UK, even once the government’s dashboard launches.
The role of commercial dashboards and private tracing solutions – now and in 2026
Many of the providers planning to launch commercial dashboards are incumbents but the sheer scale of these established players means introducing new solutions can be slower. This is where fintech solutions can support – by partnering with tech players, providers can get their solutions up and running rapidly. We’ve worked with some of the UK’s largest pension providers to launch pension-tracing tools within just three months.
Other pensions tracing solutions can step in to fill the gap before the government’s dashboard launches but they can also help to overcome issues that may remain.
Leveraging the decades of trust people have in their existing financial providers via commercial dashboards will be key to encouraging savers to locate their lost pots. Whether people use the government’s dashboard or solutions offered by their bank or pension provider – ideally, they should be utilising both to maximise the efficacy of their search – is of less concern as long as savers are reunited with all their pension pots. A collaborative approach between government and industry is the most effective approach to achieve this goal.
In a similar vein, the government must look to existing pensions tracing platforms as it develops the central dashboard. In other markets we see the importance of a strong user experience in boosting engagement. Through collaboration with government, innovative tech solutions can provide the expertise needed to ensure that the government’s dashboard is as useful as possible.
While the government dashboard will be a hugely welcome addition to the pensions industry, it is not the silver bullet. There will be outstanding challenges around engagement, mismatches, limitations of consolidation options and the problem of lost pots isn’t going away anytime soon. Millions of UK savers have lost track of their pensions and are in desperate need of support. When it comes to locating lost pots, savers need simplicity and a choice of solutions that work for them – both the government and commercial dashboards are necessary to support this, alongside other simple pension-finding solutions from their financial provider.
Marco Ross is Co-Founder and CEO at Raindrop
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