EIOPA chair pushes for action on pension dashboard, auto-enrolment, PEPP

The chair of the European pensions supervisory authority has called for “bravery” to make a pensions dashboard at European level a reality.

In late 2021, EIOPA delivered its advice to the European Commission on developing pension tracking services and a dashboard to strengthen the monitoring of pension developments in EU Member States.

Speaking at EIOPA’s annual conference today, Petra Hielkema said the advice was “sitting there, in Brussels”.

“It’s difficult, because if you really want a full dashboard you need the labour and social information combined with what we have at EIOPA,” she said. “But no matter how difficult that may seem, to governments, to policymakers, to collect the relevant data, we cannot close the pension gap, raise the awareness that is needed, without measuring it.

“So we need that data, and we need it in one dashboard. It takes some brave steps, but let’s do it, let’s be brave, we need the information.”

EIOPA does not have competences in relation to first pillar social security pensions, which are the main source of retirement income for most people in Europe.

Hielkema also said EIOPA would be recommending the new Commission take action on auto-enrolment policies, with such schemes “playing an important role in building pension pots in those countries that are piloting them”.

The chair also defended the EU Pan-European Pension Product (PEPP), saying EIOPA still saw merit in it. “But this is a brilliant example of something that can work from an EU perspective if it is also supported at the national level, e.g. if it is treated and taxed the same way as other pension products, and that is currently not the case.”

“When you consider that in a few decades only 43% of people are confident that they will have enough money for a comfortable retirement, if you consider that in a few decades only 1.5 persons will be working for one pensioner, you will understand that we are recommending further action to the Commission on all these three topics.”

The PEPP framework came into effect in March 2022 amid doubts about take-up by providers. So far there is only one provider, a Slovakia-based company called Finax.

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