New live testing data from Heywood's Integrated Service Provider supports earlier industry projections and highlights the need for schemes to prepare now.
Heywood, a leading provider of pension technology solutions, and Integrated Service Provider (ISP) services, has revealed early findings from Phase 1 of Pensions Dashboards testing, showing that possible matches could become a significant and ongoing operational challenge for pension schemes and providers once dashboards launch at scale.
The results closely align with Heywood Pension Pulse, which projected that 18.52% of dashboard requests could result in a possible match, based on analysis of almost three million member records.
The findings are based on c2,500 live find requests processed through Heywood's ISP during the first phase of pensions dashboards testing. Across those requests, 376 pensions were successfully located, with the ISP returning a further 62 possible matches.
With around 16 million savers expected to use pensions dashboards once fully operational, even conservative estimates suggest schemes and providers could face substantial volumes of member enquiries requiring investigation and resolution.
"When we published Pension Pulse, the up to one-in-five figure was a projection based on the data we could see across millions of records," said Chris Connelly, Chief Strategy Officer at Heywood.
"What is striking about this early testing data is how closely it tracks. It tells us the modelling was sound, and that possible matches are going to be a real, recurring feature of dashboards, not an edge case. Even if your data is clean, you will still get other members, with similar data to yours, turning up as possible matches to resolve."
While Heywood emphasises that the data represents an early-stage testing sample and should not be considered representative of final dashboard behaviour, the findings provide the first real-world indication that projected possible match volumes may become reality.
The testing cohort was largely made up of pensions industry professionals who typically maintain more accurate and complete records than the wider population. As Phase 2 testing expands to include broader consumer demographics, including individuals with lower digital confidence and more fragmented pension histories, possible match volumes could increase further.
"Phase 1 was made up largely of pensions industry testers alongside a smaller group of consumers. These people broadly already knew what they had," continued Connelly.
"The general public will not look like that. The records being searched will be more varied, older and less complete. The figures presented in Phase 1 may represent the floor, not the ceiling."
Heywood warns that possible matches are not simply a data quality issue. Even schemes with highly accurate records are likely to receive enquiries relating to individuals who are not their members, but whose personal details create a potential match within dashboard search criteria.
As a result, schemes and providers must prepare operationally for increased and potentially volatile enquiry volumes, resolution processes, and member support requirements.
"Schemes and providers must bear in mind legal duties that require them to resolve every possible match if a member contacts them," said Connelly.
"And statistically speaking, the majority of possible matches will not be your members. This will not only be a challenge for resource management, but also a conversation to be had with the people who pay for your administration service."
Heywood is encouraging schemes and providers to focus on three key areas ahead of dashboards going live:
The company believes data readiness must be viewed as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-off dashboards project, particularly as data quality naturally deteriorates over time.
"A possible match is not a found pension," added Connelly. "It is an asterisk against the central promise of dashboards: reconnecting people with their savings.
" This is not an issue that will disappear at launch. Schemes and providers should be preparing now, not waiting until dashboards are live. Even a relatively low possible match rate, applied to millions of users, creates a substantial and ongoing operational reality that needs planning for now."
Heywood will continue to monitor testing results as the Pensions Dashboards Programme progresses and will share further insights as additional data becomes available.