News story: Winners of Pensions Dashboard Techsprint revealed as FinTech Week 2017 draws to a close

The event, hosted at Aviva’s Digital Garage in Hoxton, brought together over 20 leading technology firms with consumer groups and industry experts to develop the best ideas for how pension dashboards can revolutionise retirement planning for ordinary pension savers.

Using the Pensions Dashboard prototype unveiled by the Pensions Dashboard Project Group on Wednesday morning as a starting point, the participants worked overnight to develop their ideas.

The winners were:

  • Wobi, Sigma, Pension Portal and Pension Hub – the ‘Consumer Champion’ award for their personal pension timeline combined with life event nudges
  • Bravura, MyFuture Now and True Potential – the ‘Eureka’ and ‘People’s Choice’ awards for their ‘Act Your Age’ financial age comparison tool
  • Digital Space, GBST, NEST, Sprint Enterprise and SSP Advisor – ‘Speed-build’ award for their ‘Lifeline’ holistic savings tool incorporating pensions alongside other finances

The TechSprint was part of FinTech Week 2017 which saw thousands of firms, investors, regulators and authorities from around the globe meet in London to celebrate the UK’s world leading FinTech industry.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said:

I am delighted at the success of FinTech Week 2017. It has been fantastic to see how Britain is leading the way in this crucial sector. I am clear that the government will do everything it can to help firms seize the opportunities FinTech presents as we forge a bold new role for ourselves in the world and build the highly skilled, highly productive economy we all want.

I want to congratulate the TechSprint winners on their fantastic ideas and thank everyone for taking part. It is great to see the potential FinTech has to help consumers now and in the future.

Team ‘Act Your Age’, the winners of two TechSprint awards, said:

A fantastic event which showed what a group of strangers can achieve in one day if they are collaborative and open. Our approach to give people more information about their pension was to keep it simple – and keep it effective.

FinTech Week 2017 ran from Monday to Thursday with events organised by government, regulators, trade bodies and industry. It underlined the UK’s status as the best place in the world to build a FinTech firm and showcased the country’s most cutting-edge FinTech firms – and the impact they have on real people.

On Wednesday over 800 people attended the government’s first ever International FinTech Conference.‎ Over 100 UK FinTech firms mixed with ‎hundreds of investors from every continent, in a bid to increase investment in the sector.

Video highlights of the International FinTech Conference 2017

Speakers travelled from far and wide to attend the event, including Adrianne Harris, special assistant to President Obama for economic policy, flying from the United States of America.

The conference featured a series of workshops covering topics like payments, open-banking, how to co-invest with the BBB, roboadvice, cyber security and financial inclusion. It closed with 14 UK firms, including Plum, Disperse and Onfido, pitching directly to hundreds of investors on the main stage.

Opening the International FinTech Conference, Chancellor Philip Hammond highlighted the importance of exciting new sectors like FinTech and artificial intelligence in driving a modern, productive economy.

The Chancellor said:

We can’t remain the number one place for FinTech and other technologies of the fourth industrial revolution by simply relying on our ingenuity, talent and openness, we have to go out and get the business.

Responsible for innovations like contactless payments, banking apps and online crowd funding, the sector is worth nearly £7 billion to the UK economy and employs over 60,000 people in the UK.

It is changing the way we bank and, thanks to Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit and our world leading financial sector and regulatory environment, independent experts rank the UK as the best place to start and grow a FinTech firm anywhere in the world.

Further information on Pension Dashboard:

  • pension dashboards have the potential to revolutionise retirement planning by allowing people to see all of their pension savings in one place
  • at the moment there is no easy way for people to see the value of all of their pensions, with people having to track down their data themselves, locate missing records and wait for up to date estimates
  • research has shown that over a third of people approaching retirement find it difficult to keep track of their pension pots and there is currently around £400 million worth of pension pots laying unclaimed
  • pension dashboards should change this by helping people access their pensions information more easily