Retirement Income  

What mobile phone firms can teach pension providers

He added Aviva is also working closely with other companies in the industry to develop the pensions dashboard.

Martin Palmer, Zurich's head of corporate fund propositions, said the pensions sector can certainly learn from others.

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"The telecoms industry is obviously one where we can learn more - the banking sector is another."

He stressed the need to make the concept of relevance key to consumers, because as it stands people do not go online on a day to day basis to see how much they'e saved.

"Things like the pensions dashboard will be really important. It will allow people to consolidate into a smaller number of different policies and see everything in one place.

"Digitalisation is critical and we see that as the direction of travel for us and the rest of the industry."

Alan Chan, director at IFS Wealth & Pensions said one of the biggest challenges is getting people engaged with their pensions.

"For many people a pension is very different and separate to the rest of their finances, like savings in the bank, because it's designed for tomorrow and tomorrow may a very long time away.

"Naturally then, you wouldn't expect people to check their pension funds daily.  Sometimes this can be a good thing to avoid panic selling and relentlessly chopping and changing their pension investments at every bit of market news.  But other times it can mean that people will often leave things a little too late."

ruth.gillbe@ft.com