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The right information, at the right time, will help people make clearer choices on their future, earlier and with confidence.
If you could make a single change today that would improve your later life, would you? The huge growth in digital health tools, finance apps and vitamin supplements suggests most of us would. If you could make that change for those dear to you, would you?
I am fortunate enough to be a dad to an amazing little girl. Like most parents, I try to make decisions today that I know will have a positive impact on her future. I’d expect most parents, if they could, would make the same deal. Pensions represent one of the biggest deals you can make.
These are warm words and great sentiments, of course. Early engagement can lead to very different outcomes over time, influencing issues as significant as health, wealth and the ability to care for others. Yet the reality is that life is busy and sometimes stressful – and that can all too easily delay action.
Our responsibility, however, is how we make that a reality, and that is where warm words need to translate into solid actions.
This is where data and insight, delivered well in an engaging way, can make all the difference. You don’t have to look far in the financial services industry to see great examples of this.
The Lloyds Banking Group app, for instance, currently has 12m customers registered to access their credit score. More importantly, it explains why that score is what it is, and what’s changed, for better or worse.
The why is key, as it enables people to take deliberate action to improve their position, and each month hundreds of thousands do.
Then there’s the Scottish Widows app, which benefits from open-finance technology so that people can link up their pension, money, savings and investment accounts to give them a comprehensive view of their overall financial health.
The parallels with pensions are clear – and highly relevant.
Right information, right time, right environment
With the right information served at the right time, we create the right environment for people to consider what action might be best for them. Open banking-enabled data, supported by services such as bringing all your pensions into one simple view, creates data rich environments to give you the full picture and enable good decision making.
Serving this up at the touch of a button through an app or web journey makes it easy to access when it suits people to do so. For those hard-working parents sitting down to their first cup of tea late at night, having everything in one place at the touch of a button can be hugely important.
The ability to easily use that data in models or projections that include capability based on real life, member-led situations – such as the ability to model future outcomes, including the impact of career breaks – makes it highly relevant, supporting real-life decision making.
Gamification and intelligent prompts help members navigate to the right, simple, straightforward journeys to take any action needed, making a real impact on real lives. And these are not hypothetical – these are real experiences that are available to members today.
The concept of holding your future in your hands is becoming ever more real, and the rapidly evolving technical capability that AI affords, alongside the industry focus on promoting member-led activity such as targeted support, lays a clear trail of where we need to go.
Pension dashboards are moving closer to reality. As testing progresses towards a confirmed launch date, individuals will be able to see all their pensions in one place – including ones they may have lost track of, and their State Pension – and gain a clearer understanding of their likely retirement outcome. Having that information at their fingertips, along with targeted support, gives them the opportunity to take their own actions to change that for the better.
The right information at the right time: I’m delighted that we are discussing this as the position today, that this is real life for millions of members and I am proud to be part of that development here at Scottish Widows. I look forward to sharing more as we continue to push forward to help everyone feel empowered to make a change today that can make a real difference for people tomorrow.
Read the latest news, expertise and thought leadership from Scottish Widows’ workplace pensions experts – here.
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