Preparing data for dashboards: what you need to do

For pension providers and schemes getting ready for pensions dashboards, data preparation is a vital step. Accurate, complete and well-structured data will help ensure dashboards can match people to their pensions correctly and present information clearly and consistently.

Here we delve into data preparation for pensions dashboards, discussing why high-quality data and a robust data matching approach are important, what you need to do as a pension provider or scheme, and where to find guidance and support.

Why data preparation matters

Ensuring pension data is reliable and up to date is one of the most critical steps for pension providers and schemes in preparing for connection. Pensions dashboards rely on high-quality data to return accurate pension information to consumers.

Pension providers and schemes need to adhere to requirements in the Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Rules, and to the data standards.

It is also important to conduct thorough data audits, address any gaps or inconsistencies and ensure records are as complete as possible. Putting in this effort now could make a big difference in increasing the volume of definite matches and reducing the volume of queries received from consumers.

Take a look at our blog on the benefits of good data for savers and schemes for more on this topic.

About data standards

Data standards provide the basis for data interoperability across the dashboards ecosystem, defining how find and view data must be formatted and structured. They specify how pension providers and schemes receive find requests from the central digital architecture and how they should send view responses to the dashboard.

They are there to help pension providers and schemes (and third-party organisations connecting on their behalf), and developers of dashboard connectivity solutions, build a common set of message handling tools to receive and reply with appropriate data.

Data standards apply to the trustees or managers of occupational pension schemes and stakeholder and personal pensions connected to, or required to connect to, the pensions dashboards ecosystem. 

As a trustee or scheme manager you are responsible for adhering to the standards, even if your organisation is connecting via a third party such as an integrated service provider or third-party administrator.

Find data and view data

Find data is the personal information that users enter which pension providers and schemes use to match people to their pension records. It includes their name, date of birth, address, email address, mobile phone number (where used for 2-factor authentication), National Insurance number (if provided by the user), and possibly additional personal data.

View data is the pensions information sent back to the dashboard by the provider or scheme for the user to see. This includes information about the pension arrangement such as a pension type description, pension value (both accrued value and estimated retirement income), payable date and administrator contact information.

See Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) Dashboards Values Guidance for more details.

Deciding your data matching approach

Pension providers and schemes use people’s find data to match people to their pension records. Whether a find request from a consumer returns a definite match or a possible match with a pension depends on the data matching criteria in place.

• A definite match is where the pension provider or scheme is confident that the user’s find data matches their pension records, so their pension information can be returned.
• A possible match is where only some of the find data match a pension record, so the pension provider or scheme needs more information before their pension data can be returned. The user has to contact the provider or scheme to provide further information to resolve the possible match.

Data matching criteria, including when to return a possible match, is the responsibility of the pension provider or scheme. Legislation requires trustees and managers to decide on their criteria for matching – for example, first name, last name and date of birth – and to complete matching when they receive a find request.

To help develop and decide your data matching criteria, see PASA Data Matching Convention Guidance.

Time limits for returning view data

Where the value data has been generated for a benefit statement provided to the member within the past 13 months, or where it is based on a calculation that was provided to the member within the past 12 months, the value data must be provided immediately.

Otherwise, the value information must be provided within 3 or 10 days (except for certain legislative exemptions, such as a scheme winding up).

See the dashboards Regulations and the FCA Rules for comprehensive information on how this rule applies.

Identity service and verified data

The identity service verifies certain attributes to confirm users are who they say they are and helps match them to their pensions information. Pension providers and schemes may wish to consider which attributes the identity service verifies as this can help in determining their data matching approach.

Data items verified by the identity service are first name, last name, date of birth, email address and mobile number (if used for 2-factor authentication, but may not be provided if the user chooses to use an authenticator app).

UK addresses provided by the identity service are checked to exist, and through credit records, demonstrated as having an association with the user, but the address is not verified to be the user's current address.

Guidance and support

If you are a trustee or scheme manager preparing for pensions dashboards, you should consult PASA’s pensions dashboards guidance. This includes Dashboards Values Guidance and Data Matching Convention Guidance. The latter was last updated in July 2025, ahead of the beginning of consumer testing of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard.

You can also visit support via the PDP website to find answers to common queries on data preparation and various topics related to pensions dashboards, and to raise questions with us directly.