Navro and MM have formed an exclusive partnership to link international proof-of-life verification with global pension payment infrastructure.
The collaboration brings together Navro's cross-border pension payments infrastructure and MM's managed verification service to create a closed-loop process: member identity and living status are confirmed before a payment is initiated, and the payment is then executed through the appropriate local payment rails.
Addressing a growing liability for UK pension schemes
The partnership targets a specific and quantifiable risk facing UK pension schemes. More than one million UK pension members currently reside abroad, a figure that is growing at approximately 2% per year. According to government data, an estimated GBP 511 million in overpayments is linked to undetected deaths within pension schemes, a risk that carries particular weight for trustees of defined contribution schemes, who carry clear fiduciary duties to act in members' interests.
Confirming that overseas members are alive and resident where records indicate has long presented operational difficulties for scheme administrators, given the complexity of cross-border communication and the diversity of official documentation across jurisdictions.
How the verification and payment process works
MM's Overseas Proof of Life service manages member engagement through both digital and physical correspondence, and uses biometric identity verification that incorporates selfie capture and official document scanning. The service supports more than 230 international document types and provides certificates of existence, scheme-branded communications, and reporting for trustees and administrators. Both single and bulk verification are available to accommodate schemes of varying sizes.
Once a member has completed the proof-of-life journey, with postal or alternative routes available where digital access is limited, the payment is processed through Navro's global payments network. The combined reporting from both platforms is intended to provide trustees and administrators with a documented audit trail showing who was verified, when, and with what outcome, alongside the corresponding payment records.
For pension schemes already using Navro's payments infrastructure, the partnership is designed to reduce overpayment exposure, strengthen the fiduciary position of trustees, and provide clearer evidence of due diligence in the event of regulatory scrutiny.
A company official at Navro noted that paying deceased overseas members is increasingly viewed within the industry not as an operational inevitability but as a preventable failure, and that the partnership is intended to give schemes a defensible framework linking verification directly to payment execution. A company official at MM described the goal as making overseas verification simple, secure, and scalable, with trustees able to rely on documentation to support each payment decision.
