Please note: this programme is subject to change
Effective, timely and informed decisions about pensions are a huge challenge - an FCA report last year suggested that 33% of non-retired adults have never thought about their pension before. Taking a behavioural approach to this challenge can help. Thinks Applied Behavioural Science Team’s experiment conducted for the Association of British Insurers showed how a combination of personalisation and simple design and copy changes can dramatically improve financial decision making.
Thinks delivered an iterative mixed-methods intervention design and test (with COM-B) to produce evidence for the impact of personalised guidance on the quality of decision making around pensions for the Association of British Insurers (ABI). We created user journey maps to select appropriate pensions decisions, conducted qualitative research with people making those decisions and industry experts, co-designed personalised guidance options drawing on both the behavioural science literature and experts from the pensions industry and ran an online RCT to produce rigorous evidence of impact.
Carol McNaughton Nicholls will address:
- This recent work (that fed into the Advice/Guidance Boundary Review and ‘targeted support’ system proposal from the FCA and HMT)
- How taking a behavioural approach can improve outcomes for your customers
From geopolitics to technology, climate and energy, debt, demographics and the return of big government, global markets face simultaneous upheaval across multiple dimensions. After an atypical generation of falling inflation, rates and volatility, these tectonic shifts are likely to drive markets into a more volatile and inflation-prone era which will fundamentally challenge many of the assumptions which underpin popular portfolio strategies. This presentation will focus on how to navigate this more turbulent landscape, focusing on the importance of shifting cross-asset correlations and identifying a host of generational risks and opportunities now in play.
Historically, most UK DC schemes favoured passive index strategies, with default strategies heavily inclined towards public markets. However, since the Global Financial Crisis, markets have experienced stable growth and low inflation, but the shift observed in 2022 indicates a new era of macroeconomic volatility, prompting DC schemes to adjust their default strategies accordingly. With changing macroeconomic conditions and a rising focus on sustainability, an increasing number of DC schemes are turning to private markets for better diversification and potentially higher risk-adjusted returns. It is imperative for trustees to diversify investment strategies to safeguard members' retirement incomes.
Foraging to farming. Farming to fossil fuels. Fossil fuels to renewables. This third great energy transition is being driven at pace by technology and policy. Add unprecedented change in our natural world with a dose of global politics, and you have a recipe for disorder. Above all, however, it is a once-in-a-generation structural shift, offering up a rich seam of opportunities for the long-term stock picker. Hear from us on navigating the challenges and, more importantly, identifying the investment winners.
In this session we will discuss the importance of incorporating true diversification (with sufficient liquidity) to investment portfolios, and the positive impact this can have on member outcomes.
LTAFs present British pension savers with a distinctive chance to invest in a vital asset class, delivering stable, diversified, and inflation-linked returns. Providing access to long-term investments in private markets, encompassing wind, solar, hydrogen, heating, and storage assets, LTAFs emerge as an enticing and diversifying addition to DC members' portfolios, offering exposure to renewable energy and the broader energy transition.
This session will delve into:
- How using an LTAF to access energy transition assets can add material value to a DC member’s outcome
- Managing a semi-liquid portfolio in a DC context
- How do we think about UK investments
What are the key legal duties and regulatory constraints which Trustees will need to observe, and which will inform their approach as they navigate their way through the proposed DC decumulation and small pots changes coming for DC pension schemes?
The old model for credit investing is broken. A new economic era is emerging from the pieces, and we believe that active security selection will be the key to exploiting the dispersion ubiquitous in this new environment. We discuss the opportunity set for a global solution investing across the credit spectrum and how investors can look to their managers to take advantage and avoid the pitfalls in the market today.
The proposed architectural changes to decumulation is gathering considerable traction. Trustees will be legally obliged to provide decumulation services to members, either within the scheme or in collaboration with an external provider. Government survey results indicate that only 28% of individuals aged 55 to 59 have a clear retirement plan, with 17% unaware of their available choices. The surge in the 'baby-boomers' population means that nearly a million DC members enter pre-retirement each year, necessitating greater sophistication in managing the growing number of members and assets.
This session will address:
- How can schemes offer a more streamlined retirement process when members wish to access their pension?
- What does a decumulation strategy look like?
- Investment portfolio construction in decumulation
Workplace pensions are increasingly a focus for policymakers keen to fix the UK economy. Although said policymakers are ambitious, what’s been proposed so far is unlikely to benefit current or future retirees. SEI will explain why, and argue that societal needs be placed at the heart of retirement saving.