UK Pensions: What’s new this week? October 26, 2026

TPR guidance on AI concentration risk

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published guidance highlighting that rapid growth in AI-related investment and the embedding of AI across sectors presents a concentration risk. TPR expects trustees to understand their scheme's aggregate AI exposure, assess the implications of a possible market downturn, and take proportionate steps to manage this. These include:

• asking advisers and managers to identify direct and indirect AI-related exposure across the whole portfolio
• stress-testing a severe but plausible downturn in AI-related assets
• reviewing how passive strategies (particularly market cap-weighted strategies) may become more concentrated as the value of AI-related companies rises
• challenging active managers on how they measure and manage concentration risk, on their stress-testing assumptions and whether liquidity or leverage could amplify losses, and how exposure could change
• ensuring member communications are appropriate: in particular, DC trustees should have a clear member communication plan that can be put into action quickly in a downturn to minimise the risk of poor decision-making by members.

Read the TPR guidance and the related TPR press release.

PPF confirms no levy for 2027/28 and revised actuarial assumptions

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has announced that it will not charge a levy for conventional DB schemes in 2027/28 and will pause the Alternative Covenant Scheme (ACS) levy for one year.

The PPF has also published a response to its consultation on updated actuarial assumptions for valuations carried out under sections 143 and 179 of the Pensions Act 2004. The main changes affect discount rates and mortality assumptions, largely reflecting changes in buy-out pricing. Following concerns raised about implementation dates in consultation feedback, the new section 143 assumptions will take effect from May 31, 2026, while the revised section 179 assumptions will apply to valuations with an effective date on or after November 30, 2026.

In relation to upcoming changes to provide indexation on PPF compensation, the PPF says it will publish updated valuation guidance documents later in the year, following the publication of secondary legislation under the Pension Schemes Act 2026. These documents will specify the date from which section 143, section 179, and similar valuations should include pre-1997 indexation of PPF compensation and how this indexation should be allowed for.

Read the levy press release, the response to the consultation, and the valuation guidance.

Dashboards: guidance on possible matches and daily reporting

The Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) has published guidance on resolving possible matches on pensions dashboards. A possible match arises where an individual searches for their pensions on a dashboard and a provider’s matching criteria indicate a potential, but not certain, link with a pension record. Where this occurs, the dashboard will prompt the individual to contact the scheme to determine whether there is a pension.

The guidance takes a principles-based approach. Providers should balance three things: keeping friction low for users, maintaining robust identity and fraud controls, and being able to operate at volume. It builds on these factors to set out a range of considerations, for example making sure that the user’s journey and messaging is consistent across different contact channels, enquiries are identified and acted upon promptly, and identity verification is at least as robust as business-as-usual processes, with additional checks where appropriate. It also includes FAQs dealing with a range of topics. PASA will update the toolkit as operational experience develops.

The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) has published a blog post explaining what the recently published draft updated reporting standards mean for pension schemes. The draft sets out the technical requirements for implementing daily reporting of operational data to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), which will be required from March 1, 2027. The blog post explains that the PDP does not expect further substantive changes before the standards are formally approved. It includes steps that schemes should be taking to prepare: directly connected schemes that have not yet started should submit a technical change request as soon as possible to begin testing; and schemes using a third-party connection provider should check it is on track.

Read PASA’s guidance and the PDP’s blog post.