Registration: Register first pension provider or scheme and provide technical details

Overview

Purpose of this step

When you have registered your first pension provider or scheme, you will be able to begin your technical connection journey on behalf of the pension provider or scheme you are connecting to the pensions dashboards ecosystem ('the ecosystem').

You will also need to provide details of your test endpoints: this enables integration testing to be run against your connection. The regulator details and registration code for the first pension provider or scheme are used to establish your authority to connect on behalf of the pension provider or scheme.

Once you have completed this step, the registration code will expire.

You can now login with your username and password, and will have access to the account management centre on the connection portal. You will only be able to add more pension providers and schemes after you have completed technical connection for your first pension provider or scheme.

Who completes this step?

• primary business contact (PBC)

Read the full list of roles and responsibilities.

Before you begin

Before you can register your first pension provider or scheme you need to have:

• created a PBC account
• gathered the regulator details and registration code for your first pension provider or scheme – these must be the same details used to create a PBC account
• gathered the holdername (called holdernameGUID in the technical standards) for the pension provider or scheme you are connecting – a holdername is a unique identifier for a specific pension provider or scheme at a defined endpoint
• gathered details for the test environment, including the test endpoint URLs, test scheme name and test holdername

What you need to do in this step

1. Register your first pension provider or scheme.
2. Provide holdername details.
3. Provide details for the test environment.

1. Register your first pension provider or scheme

You must provide the regulatory information for the first pension provider or scheme you are registering. This must match the information you entered when creating your PBC account and registering your organisation. 

The pension provider or scheme name you provided when you created your PBC account is displayed for your reference. You need to provide the details of:

• the regulating body (either the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or The Pensions Regulator (TPR))
• the regulator number (either the Firm Reference Number (FRN) from the FCA or the Pension Scheme Registry (PSR) number from TPR)
• the registration code (provided to the pension provider or scheme by their regulator )

These details will be checked against information provided by the regulators and the details provided when your account was created. If the details do not match, you will not be able to proceed. If there are 3 failed attempts:

1. Your account will be disabled and all registration codes for the pension provider or scheme will expire.
2. The pension provider or scheme will then need to request new registration codes from their regulator.
3. You will need to contact your engagement contact to start again.

2. Provide holdernames

You must provide the holdernames for the first pension provider or scheme you are registering. These will be used in the live environment.

What a holdername does

The holdername is a unique identifier that tells the PDP ecosystem which pension provider or scheme the pension details belong to. It:

• is associated with a regulator number and regulated body
• tells a dashboard where it can find those pension details
• is associated with a view and PAT refresh endpoint

What a holdername looks like

A holdername is a globally unique identifier (GUID) made up of 36 characters. It uses the characters 0 to 9 and a to f to create a string of 32 hexadecimal characters grouped as 8-4-4-4-12 and separated by four hyphens. An example of GUID:

The holdername will be generated by your organisation in line with the technical standards.

You will need to ask your technical team for the holdernames associated with your first pension provider or scheme.

How many holdernames you need

You will only need one holdername to connect, but you can add more later if you need to.

If pension data for a pension provider or scheme is held in two locations

If the pension data for a pension provider or scheme is held in two locations which are served by different endpoints, you will need two holdernames. Each holdername can have a different set of endpoints associated with it. This could be the case where the data for a scheme is held in different locations for the defined benefit (DB) and the defined contribution (DC) element.

If there will be a transfer of part of the pension scheme or provider to another provider

If you intend to transfer part of the pension provider or scheme to another provider, adding an additional holdername for pension provider or scheme will make this transfer more straightforward.

3. Provide details for the test environment

You must provide your organisation’s details for the test environment. These will be used to test your organisation’s build as part of the integration testing process. You will provide details of your endpoints for the live environment after completing service acceptance.  

The details you must provide for testing are: 

• find endpoint: this is a base URL which enables your organisation to receive ‘find requests’ which are initiated by the pension finder service (PFS) 
• view endpoint: this is a base URL which enables dashboards to retrieve pension details from your organisation on behalf of a requesting party 
• PAT refresh: this is a base URL which enables the protection API token (PAT) to be refreshed and a new PAT to be obtained 
• Test scheme name: a name of your choosing for your test scheme for use during integration testing
• Test holdername: The holdername for your test scheme for use during integration testing.

You can read more about these endpoints in the technical standards.

You may need to talk to your technical team to obtain these endpoints and your test scheme’s details.  

You must ensure that the URLs are accurate otherwise you will not be able to connect to the testing environment. 

Confirm account details and submit application

You will get the opportunity to review the details you have provided before you submit the request. Once you’ve submitted it, PDP will email you with a reference number for your request

If the request is approved, you will receive an email to start the next step, which is to create additional users.

How long it will take

This process should take around one day.

Support

Changelog

Last updated:22/11/2024