Nearly half of pensions professionals expect dashboards to be used primarily at key life moments such as retirement or job changes, according to a new poll.

Pension provider and consultant XPS Group has completed the acquisition of the trade and assets of insurance consultancy Austin Professional Resourcing for a potential £16.3m.

XPS said the deal for the insurance specialist will accelerate its plans to become "a broader financial services firm."

The acquisition, first announced on 26 June, will be for £3.3m, with an additional £3m payable by 31 March 2027.

A further contingent total cash consideration of up to £10m will be payable in the following two years, contingent on achieving certain stretching business performance criteria.

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Austin Professional Resourcing, established in 2006, is a UK-based specialist actuarial consultancy to insurers and financial sector clients. It has worked with more than 45 insurers and financial sector clients in the last three years, including most of the UK's top 10 insurers.

In the year ended 31 March, APR generated revenues of £10.7m. It has more than 70 client facing employees which, combined with the existing XPS insurance consulting team and access to wider XPS actuarial teams, will provide XPS with greater scale and enhanced capabilities to accelerate the group's diversification into the insurance consulting market, it said.

XPS said in a stock market statement: “The acquisition will further accelerate the group's diversification strategy into large tangential addressable markets and its aim of becoming a market leading financial services consulting and administration provider.”

Announcing the acquisition in June, Paul Cuff, co-CEO of XPS Group, said: “We have been admirers of the APR business for some time, with its strong culture, its highly talented people and its deep relationships in the insurance market.

“With this transaction, XPS will have doubled our total addressable market to £6bn+ in the space of less than two years, through strategic acquisitions and senior recruitment. We are very excited about what the future holds as we become a broader financial services firm providing outstanding client service to pension schemes and insurers alike."

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New figures released by HMRC reveal that the tax authorities collected £164m in pension annual allowance charges last year with one expert warning that high-earners are being "caught out" by the charge.

For much of the last 30 years, the role of pension trustees has been relatively clear: protect members, pay benefits and manage risk.