Digital social innovation ::lessons learned from European pension tracking systems

Income poverty in old age is a critical social issue in Switzerland, where digitalization of social insurances is lagging behind that of other countries. Digitalization should offer more transparency and help people better plan their finances for retirement. Even though there is no technical challenge, no digital system is available in Switzerland to estimate old age pensions. The aim of our study is to examine other European countries’ best practices concerning the digitalization of retirement information provided to citizens. This article provides an overview of current digital services to estimate old age pensions in Europe. Our study focused on the scope and functionalities of existing systems. We were able to identify some similarities: most of the systems informed citizens of their retirement age and the amount of their future pensions. State and vocational pensions were the main information the pension tracking systems (PTSs) studied provided. We also clearly concluded that an e-ID is essential to propose a PTS. Governance models were also examined and compared.