How smart individual pension dashboards can boost retirement outcomes

With the growth of asset-backed pension systems, individuals have been granted greater rights and responsibilities in planning their retirement savings and payout options. This shift requires that pension systems be complemented by tools that support individuals in making informed decisions about their retirement savings, particularly in estimating their future retirement income in real terms.

To support this move towards increased individual responsibility, individual pension dashboards have emerged as digital platforms that provide a personalised overview of an individual’s pension entitlements and retirement savings from different sources, including public pay-as-you-go pensions, employer-provided pension plans, and potentially also personal retirement savings plans. By providing a consolidated and personalised view of one’s expected financial situation in retirement, dashboards can help individuals better assess whether they are on track to achieve their desired lifestyle in retirement and, if not, to take action.

Numerous countries around the world have developed pension dashboards, and many others are in the process of doing so. The first dashboards were established by Denmark in 1999 and Sweden in 2004. More recently, Croatia and Spain launched dashboards in 2024, and the United Kingdom is in the process of rolling one out. These examples provide valuable insights on effective design and use for other countries.

The OECD Pensions Outlook 2024 looks at pension dashboards globally and provides good practices. A summary of the dashboards considered is provided in the table below.

Successful pension dashboards will be effective at engaging users and help them to take action to improve their financial situation in retirement. The pension dashboard should automatically link to individuals’ sources of retirement income so that they can have a full picture of their pension entitlements and retirement savings as soon as they log into their account. When accounts cannot be automatically linked, dashboards should allow the user to manually link their accounts to see all of their information in one place. Sweden, for example, allows users to input their housing assets, and the Netherlands allows linking to a spouse’s account to facilitate retirement planning at a household level.

The most important piece of information that dashboards should provide is an estimate of future retirement income in real terms. People can compare this figure with their current salary and spending levels and can therefore more easily assess whether it is enough for them to maintain their standard of living.

In addition, showing how that retirement income can change over time during retirement can help people to understand the implications of different payout options and the value of taking their pension as a lifetime income rather than a lump sum. Sweden allows users to compare different payout options and see how this will change their retirement income over time. The dashboard should nevertheless make clear that the income is only an estimate and can change depending on variables such as future contributions and investment returns. Chile does this by illustrating a range of outcomes.

Financing retirement is complex, so it is very important that dashboards present information in a simple way that is easy for people to digest. The dashboard should use everyday language, avoiding technical jargon, and make use of visuals where this could help people to understand more difficult concepts like the uncertainty of outcomes or the impact of inflation on purchasing power.

Layering information can also be effective at engaging different types of users. This involves showing only the most important information first – for example, total expected retirement income – which will allow users who are only looking for a quick overview not to be overwhelmed by details. Denmark does this by allowing users who are interested in having more insights to drill down into their different sources of retirement income. Sweden directs users who have indicated they’re not happy with their expected outcomes to additional information and tools to help them to understand how to change their situation.

Dashboards can also include interactive tools to better engage users. Retirement income calculators allow people to change variables such as contribution levels or retirement age, demonstrating the link between the decisions people make for their retirement and the retirement income they will receive. Some, like in Belgium, allow users to also modify employment characteristics. Dashboards can make it easy for users to access additional information or help in planning for their retirement and can allow users to share information with a financial advisor for additional assistance.

Dashboards will only be effective if people actually use them, so communication plans to promote awareness of and access to the dashboard are crucial to their success. User testing and feedback is a useful way to gain insight on ease of access, navigation and content, including whether the information they are looking for is included, and how well they understand the information presented.

A dashboard also needs a well-articulated purpose and objective that will provide a benchmark to measure its success and identify improvements needed to ensure it fulfils its role.

But countries looking to develop an individual pension dashboard must also consider the additional challenges arising from the development and operations of a dashboard. This includes thinking about how best to involve the various stakeholders in the pension system and ensuring adequate information security and data protections are in place. The OECD Pensions Outlook 2024 includes additional insights and lessons on challenges experienced by countries in developing their own pension dashboards.

This blog is based on Chapter 7 “Individual pension dashboards: Design, development and operation” of the OECD Pensions Outlook 2024.