Transcript: Guide to registering for the Pension Portal

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this quick video guide on how to register for the Pension Portal.
Before you start, you'll need your National Insurance number, the name of your
current employer if you're an active member or the year you retired, if you're a
pensioner member. If you’ve left the scheme but aren’t claiming your pension
yet, you’re known as a deferred member, and in this case, you’ll need the date
that you left the scheme, and a mobile phone to set up a second level of
security.

To get started, head to www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk which you can

see on my screen here and click on ‘Log In’ in the top right-hand corner of the
page. This will bring you to the Pension Portal landing page, which you can see
here. And again, head to the top right-hand corner and click on ‘Login’. On the
login page under ‘New User Registration’, click on ‘Register’ and this will bring
you to the beginning of the registration process.

As I mentioned earlier, you'll need your National Insurance number, the name of
your current employer if you're an active member, the year you left the scheme,
if you’re a deferred member, or the year that you retired, if you’re a pensioner
member and a mobile phone in order to register. If you need some extra help,
you can click on ‘I need some help’ and that will bring you to our step-by-step
guidance on the Civil Service Pension Scheme website, which is here.

When you're ready, click on ‘I'm ready’ to get started. So, you'll now be asked
to enter some details, starting with your National Insurance number. Once you've
done this, click ‘Next’. You'll now be asked to enter some more information,
including your date of birth, your surname, and if you're an active member, the
name of your current employer. This is a dropdown list so you can either type in
your employer’s name or search through the list.

In this case, we're using HMRC. A quick tip. If you've recently changed jobs
and with that changed employers and if the name of your new employer isn't
accepted, it may be that we haven't received updated information for you yet.

If this happens, just try entering your previous employer and see if that works.
And again, as I mentioned, if you’re a pensioner member you'll instead be
asked for the year that you retired at this point. If you’re a deferred member,
which is when you’ve left the scheme but haven’t claimed your Civil Service
Pension yet, you’ll need to enter the date that you left the scheme. When
you've completed these fields, click ‘Next’.

So, now that we've verified who you are against our records, you can create
a username and password for your account, which you'll use whenever you log
in. Your username needs to be made up of letters and numbers and it has to be
unique.
It also can't be your email address. Next, you can create a password and there's
a short list of criteria that you need to fulfill to ensure your password is secure
and you'll notice that as you meet each one, they'll turn green.

So, it's really easy to see when you've met all the criteria and you're ready to
proceed. When you've done this, click ‘Next’. So, it's now time to enter
your email address and we always recommend using a personal email address
instead of a work one, and we'll use it to send you a verification code. When
you've done this, click send email. Within a few minutes, you should receive an
automated email with a six-digit code. Enter that code here to complete this step.

So, I've just received my code. So, once you've done this, you can click ‘Next’.
If you don't receive the email after a few minutes, check your junk or spam folder
first and if it isn't in there, click on ‘Send email again’ just here.

So, when you've entered the code, click ‘Next’ and you'll come to this final step,
which is where you'll set up two factor authentication.

Two factor authentication is essentially a second level of security to keep your

information safe and secure, you can choose how you do this. You can either
receive a text message to your mobile phone number, or you can use an
authenticator app if you have one already installed on your device. Both methods
will produce a six-digit verification code for you to enter the next step to verify
that this is your device. If you don't already have an authenticator
app installed on your device, I would recommend opting for the text message
route because it's a little bit more straightforward. So, if you choose the text
message route, click on the box. Here you'll need to enter your mobile phone
number and click ‘Send code’. This will send an automated text message
to your phone number, which you can enter below. If you don't receive the code
within a few minutes, click on ‘Didn't receive a message, send again’ to resend it.

So, I've just received mine. So, enter it here and then click ‘Next’. That will close
the pop up and then you can click ‘Next’. If you decide to use the Authenticator
App, click on the ‘Authenticator App’ option and similarly you'll see this pop up.
You'll now need to open your Authenticator App on your device and scan this QR
code. It will then display a six-digit code for you in the app
to enter below.

So, I'm just doing that now and I'm going to enter my six-digit code. Once you've
done this, click ‘Next’ This will close the pop up, this box will turn green
and then you can click ‘Next’. Finally, you'll see a list of recovery codes on this
next page, so these are to use if you ever lose access to the phone or mobile
device that you use for two factor authentication. Each code is personalised to
you, and can only be used once, so it's essentially a backup in case you ever
lose your device or lose access to your device. You can copy these codes,
print them off, or download them to keep them somewhere safe. It's also worth
knowing that you can actually find these in the portal once you set up your
account where you can download them from there or you can regenerate them
if you ever run out, hopefully you won’t.

So, once you've done this, you can click ‘Next’ and you're done.

So, now you can either give us some feedback in our short survey about how you
find this process, or you can simply click ‘Take me to sign in’ where you can sign
into your new account.

Authentication code, which I've just received. Click ‘Verify’, and here you
are, signed into the Pension Portal. Thank you very much for watching.