FYR078 Navigating Pensions with Scottish Widows Stuart Hopley

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Fund Retirement Podcast, the show where we bring you guest insights and practical strategies to help you build long term wealth. Today, I'm delighted to introduce Stuart Hopley, Relationship Director at Scottish Widows. Stuart leads a team of workplace relationship managers working closely with large employers and advisors to support their workplace savings schemes. In our conversation, Stuart shares his unexpected journey into pensions. We talk about the big challenges people face with pensions, from the complexity of the system to the lack of saving culture here in the uk. Stuart also offers practical advice on how to track down old pensions, what the new pension dashboard could mean and why regular contributions can make such a big difference. We also touch on financial education, the challenges of self employed and the role employers can play in supporting their people. And finally, Stuart shares some fresh ideas on how to get people more engaged with pensions, from social media to gamification and, um, webinars. Let's get started. Hello, Stuart, thank you very much for joining us today. Really appreciate you coming on the show.

Speaker B: You're welcome. Delighted to be here.

Speaker A: Looking forward to this. This topic is pretty much going to be pensions, pensions and pensions.

Speaker B: Look, we're recording this during pension engagement season, so if there's ever an axe time now it is.

Speaker A: Exactly. So first of all, Stuart, would you mind sharing a little bit about your career journey, where you got started and what's took you to where you are today. I'd just like all the guests to give that little bit of background so that the audience can get to know you.

Speaker B: Of course. And I bet, like many of your guests, this wasn't a planned career. I don't think anybody said, you know what, I want to help people plan and save for retirement. Nobody said that ever. So my journey is atypical. My parents were accountants, so guess what my university degree that I got put down for was, it was of course accountancy. But that summer, after A levels decided to go and meet me mum in the center of town and before I met her, I decided, I'm going to see if I can find a job. And I went into a temping agency. But I probably asked the best question I've ever asked in my life, which is I'm not really looking for anything temporary. What have you got that's permanent? And they said, you know what, there's a company just down the road that they're just expanding. Go and see them. They're looking for people probably just like you, young people starting out. And it was the best thing I ever did because that was a company called Scottish Amicable, which now many of your viewers will know as Prudential and David, who led the office there. We talked about cricket. Bear in mind this is the 90s leads a different interview process. We talked about cricket, we talked about various other things. And he said, you're a decent chap, why don't you start on Monday? And on one level, the rest is history. I then found when I opened the post and various other things as part of that office job, that there were things called endowments and also things called pensions. From there I just moved from an administration role into looking after advisors because there's a massive space for third parties and intermediaries in the financial services area. Most people, again, they don't dream up thinking they need a pension, somebody needs to tell them about it. So I was supporting advisors through that space and then eventually moved into more of the pensions role, looking after ultimately the employers that sponsor, uh, those pension arrangements. And that's my day job right now. I run a team of relationship managers at Scottish Widows. All have the pleasure of dealing with some of the largest employers in the UK that ultimately look after the families of their employees in terms of their retirement savings and financial future. So that's how I got here. Like many, I'm sure not a planned journey, but one that I'm very happy to be on.

Speaker A: Yeah, clearly from there you can see that you've been in pensions pretty much day one really, haven't you, then starting with what is now prudential. So in your experience and the role that you now do, why is it one of the least areas that people understand?

Speaker B: There's loads of reasons. Right, Loads of reasons. If I think back to when I first started, ah, people needed to choose to go into a pension. I was really lucky that my employer at that time had a workplace pension. And you were auto enrolled. But auto enrollment didn't really come in for most people employed until 13 years ago. 2012 was the first auto enrollment and actually it phased in over a number of years depending on the size of your company. So it was only at that point that you were auto enrolled into a pension. Before then you would have been lucky enough to have either a very good employer that, that prioritize this and automatically put you in, or somebody in that business that encouraged you or your dad who said you should go into a pension, or somebody else maybe like a financial advisor that identified you should go in. So that's the first stumbling block for people. The next stumbling block for people is it's saving for something that's many years in the future. And we're not a savings culture in the uk, we're just not. And it is totally right you should live for today, but tomorrow comes as well and you do need to save for that future. And unless you have somebody telling you that, even though you are now enrolled into a pension, unless you have somebody telling you that, then you may not do the right things for you. And I mentioned complexity, obviously, people get switched off by many things that are complex in the financial system. A pension is not a pension. It's not a pension. There's so many different flavors of it and different variants and that just immediately switches people off.

Speaker A: Why do you think people do switch off?

Speaker B: It's complication. Right. If I think of one of one of my friends, he's actually a bin man, and I'll talk, and I'll talk about John, who works the bins, as a different example later on, but I know nothing about how his lorry works, how his round works, how the operation of that lorry works. I'd probably have my hand taken off very quickly by all the equipment he uses. I don't understand his complications. Why do I expect him to understand pension's complication? It's at its simplest level, a pension is saving for your retirement future and that should be the start and end of the complication. Anything else is just behind it. Just like that lorry. When the guy who drives the lorry, he doesn't really understand how the engine works. You don't need to with a pension, you just need to understand that, have one, get involved with it. And again, we'll get into some of the themes, but we're advocating people understanding what they've got and understanding whether it's enough. If you understand those pieces, you really are on a good route to getting a decent income in retirement.

Speaker A: So somebody's listening right now. They've had two or three different jobs and they are wondering, I might have an old pension somewhere. What would you say to them? How could they actually go then and find out, is there some sort of dashboard out there? What tools are available to them to start looking?

Speaker B: Let's talk about three things, right? There's things you can do for yourself. Make a list of where you've worked, because they're probably going to be the list of the pensions that you've got. See if you can find any paper

Speaker A: or that drawer in the kitchen that's bulging with paperwork.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So that's the first thing. Secondly, if you really don't know where the pension is, the government website is there to Help you? There's a list of employers, there's a list of where their current pensions are. It's not perfectly accurate and some of the types of pensions aren't always on there, but that's a really good place. Uh, go on the gov.uk link, it's a free link. There are other companies as well, pension tracing companies that will help you, but they tend to charge fees. So you can do some stuff for yourself with making a list. But you can also look online Gov UK is what I would be recommending, but there are some pension tracing companies. But Yuli mentioned there's some magic words there. Pension dashboard, it is coming, it is real. And I talked with lots of people about the merits of the pension dashboard and it will allow people to find pensions that they've either lost or, or actually didn't even know that or didn't remember that they'd got. And the pension dashboard, all of the connections are happening right now, so things are happening in the background. It's not quite live yet for the majority of people, but when that point comes, when you get your annual statement from your pension provider, it won't just say your Scottish widow's pension, it will say all of your other pensions as well. And how wonderful is that? Because that will then be your reminder of everything you've got. Because my simplification of see it, know it, grow it, when I'm talking about see it, I want you to see all of your pensions. I, uh, don't want you to just focus on the one that is connected to your current employer. That will be half of your story. You need all of your pensions to be able to understand then what you've got and then to know what it might be worth in the future. So pension dashboard will help people fantastically well. But if people are listening to this and are wanting to try and find something that they're nagging it themselves, they know that they've got, then they can, as I say, make a list of where you worked, think about where the pension providers are, look in your shoebox of shame. And most importantly, you've got that support from the.govuk site with a list of pension providers connected to employment.

Speaker A: When is the expected delivery date for, uh, the pension dashboard? When do we think that may go live?

Speaker B: So it is rolling out over the course of the next couple of years and I'm going to be as vague as that, Lee, because like with any piece of technology, so a big M

Speaker A: piece as well, isn't it?

Speaker B: It's a massive piece different pension providers have got different systems. They've all agreed to a centralized protocol, if you like, of data sharing. That's been a huge achievement in itself and it's not been the work of moments. So right now, what's being tested are the connections of that, uh, dashboard. And, um, like any digital rollout, they can't really say it'll be open by Christmas or it'll be live by spring, because if they find some gremlins in the system, then of course they're not going to release that, because what's worse than releasing early, it's releasing wrong. Because people then will lose trust their first experience with the dashboard won't be good and they'll perhaps not try and embrace it later on. So it needs to be right. And I know everybody is working really hard on those connections. There's lots of providers connected. If you follow Richard Smith, who talks most passionately about the pension dashboard, almost weekly, he'll put up a LinkedIn post with all of the logos of the providers that are now connected to the dashboard. So it's fantastic to see that list growing. But, yeah, all of those connections are being tested right now, and we at Scottish Widows have asked a couple of our more friendly employers, let's say, that would they like to be part of the pilot connections, and of course, a number of them are very happy to be part of that. So you'll see it slowly being rolled out, testing all the connections in the first part, and then hopefully through the course of next year, you'll actually see some live connections for yourself. Will be a game changer.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely will be. That is going to be huge for helping people to keep track of their pensions and, as you say, understand where they are, what they've got and who it's with. And I was doing some research in preparation for the podcast. There's currently 3.3 million lost pensions. 31 billion pounds lost there.

Speaker B: Staggering.

Speaker A: It's huge, isn't it? Why do you think it is, then, that people lose track of their pensions, then? 31 billion pounds worth available there for people to come reconnect with, shall we say?

Speaker B: If you had the odd billion lying around, you wouldn't just leave it and forget where you. But people do with pensions. They forget they've got it, they disconnect with it. Just like in society, we move house, life moves on. It may be that they've disconnected with that pension because they have moved house and they haven't told that provider, uh, their current address. It may be that they've lost Their shoebox of shame. That, uh, little box that we put all of our papers in that are really important. Some people call it a plastic bag, some people call it a shoebox of shame. Mine's. Mine's a drawer in the kitch.

Speaker A: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker B: You know what I mean. It's not the man drawer that's got all the bits and bobs from screws, light bulbs, whatever you like. But no, uh, people put things away and forget about them. Um, and that's why they're lost. They're not really lost. Of course it's yours. It's in your name. You've just misplaced it and didn't know where it was. The other factor, of course, is it was a stat from the DWP a long time ago, but it's been updated recently. The amount of jobs that people on average will have in their lifetime, it is 12 or more now. So of course with auto enrollment, you're gathering a pension every single time. We don't have a system like payroll where when I turn up to a company, they say, what are your bank details? That might be something that we do in the future where you turn up. And they go, what are your pension details? We'll pay into it for you. But each employer has their own pension. And of course we must talk about the self employed at some point in this. Lee, that's a whole community of the UK that hasn't been supported by auto enrollment and they're much less ready for retirement because of it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So how can the industry support the self employed then? What can the industry do?

Speaker B: Let's talk about self employment. Auto enrolment has been such a success, but it really has only been the start. So if I think in 2012 and the sort of years that followed, people were auto enrolled at a very low contribution rate and it stepped up the Scottish Widow's Retirement Report. It's been over 20 years now in existence and we've been advocating for a decent level of income in retirement. You need to be saving 12%. Now, that's not just you, that's your employer as well. But obviously if your auto enrollment as it currently stands is 8%, that's clearly a gap. Self employed's worse because they're not auto enrolled, so they don't even have that initial step up. Those individuals need to think about retirement planning for themselves. Now, a lot of self employed people are supported by accountants and accountants do a fantastic job, obviously with their accounts, but also with helping people as self employed understand how they can save some tax by making a pension contribution. So we do often see the self employed making one off contributions, but actually that regular savings habit into pensions, that is the key. Many people that we talk to, they don't notice that they've had 4%, 5%, whatever it is taken out of their wages to pay for their pension because it's taken out of source. So also is something that the self employed need to have support with, embracing not just pensions, but regular saving into pensions. So there needs to be some form of legislation to not mirror auto enrolment, but in some way try and embrace the good aspects of auto enrollment. That means that m the self employed won't lose out. A boss of mine who's been very influential in my career asked me to read a book called Nudge and that nudge theory is effectively the source of auto enrolment. And of course people doing things for themselves, they know it's a good thing. But that that pile I talked about earlier of things to do that a day never comes for it, this is in that pile as well, get a pension pay into it. So unless you have that nudge to do it, you don't tend to do it unless you really want to do it. So we need to have some form of legislation that really does support self employed, gives them that nudge and allows them to get on the train and then start actually making that regular savings point. There's also a part to play of different financial services, instit institutions and also social media. But there is a part to play there, that awareness, and that is why we're so passionate about pension awareness. Awareness is a massive part as well, because if you didn't know, it's very much out of sight, out of mind. So nudging, in a pure sense, continuing that pension awareness message, there's the original nudge.

Speaker A: So pension awareness, what is it that Scottish widows are actively doing to encourage this type of awareness, particularly not just with employees, but with self employed as well?

Speaker B: So we've got a couple of different aspects at Scottish widows. So I hope you're getting an impression we're quite passionate about pensioning.

Speaker A: I am, yeah, yeah, that's coming through.

Speaker B: We've got a wonderful team that deliver lots of webinars, but we've also got a wonderful team that deliver material to promote pensions. So those are the two main things that we do and a bunch of enthusiastic people that are willing to talk about it as well. The webinars have evolved over the years, so obviously before COVID people got together we tended to get people in a room and we'd usually have on average 30 to 50 people in a room. We'd talk about what a pension is, some things for people to think about and they could ask their questions along the way. And obviously Covid really pushed everybody into the webinar, uh, world. But ah, on one level it's brilliant because I can only really ask an employer to take a certain amount of their people off the day job and get them in a room. I can only ask them a small amount of people. Right, yeah. Our first pension engagement season webinar for 2025 had over two and a half thousand people on it. Two and a half thousand people in 1M webinar. It was only a half an hour webinar. It was fantastic that the technology that we have now that it allows us to embrace many people. This year so far, 2025 Scottish Widows has uh, supported 80,000 people attending webinars

Speaker A: just in this year alone.

Speaker B: Just in this year alone. Now we're heavily reliant on employers allowing their people to come along. We do run webinars that are totally open that people can join. They are focused on people that are employed. But we also run webinars for the self employed and anybody else that's just an individual customer that wants to have a pension and isn't necessarily connected to an employer. There is also a massive part for the self employed and none employed people in product placement. Um, Martin Lewis has made a fantastic career talking and making financial services. Really simple. What do you tend to do now? If you want home insurance, you'll go on a comparison site, you'll go on maybe even Martin Lewis's site. You can do the same with pensions, but you're required to do it. The clever people and a number of the banks are doing it. And obviously Scottish Widows is part of Lloyds Banking Group. We have our Ready Made pension now. It's ready Made. It was called Ready Made for a reason, because it's an easy product purchase decision. I'm saving with a bank, I'm using them for my bank account. Why not save into a pension while I'm there? It's just another account that I've got with my bank and lots of different banks do this now and that will really help break down the barriers for people looking for a pension. And actually I'll probably go back to my friend John, his story. He said to me, I really must get a decent pension. And I said to him, well, you're employed, aren't you? And he said, yes. I said, surely your employer has got a pension. Oh, yeah, don't think of it like that. Uh, he was thinking of trying to find a pension and it was really hard for him because he didn't bank with a bank that had a pension. Uh, he didn't have any easy access to a pension. He was actually considering paying a financial advisor, not for advice, but just to be able to access a pension. Most financial advisors that are listening to this would just think that's a waste of time, of their expertise. They offer some fantastic support to people, but it is advice, not actually flogging a product. But my conversation with John was pretty simple, actually. John, you've already got a pension, so what are you trying to achieve? And what he was trying to achieve was just a bigger number so he can actually finish work at some point, enjoy his time with his family. That's what he was trying to achieve. And a lack of product for him was his barrier. So we had a nice chat and actually, I think he's gone off and paid a bit more into his workplace.

Speaker A: So is that a fault of the employer then, or, um, whoever the pension administrator was with, with the company?

Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think it's a fault of the industry as a whole. At Scottish Widows, we got four and a half million pension members, pension scheme members, and this year so far, I've had 80,000 of them on a webinar. I would love it if it was four and a half million.

Speaker A: Have to be some webinar, wouldn't it?

Speaker B: Exactly. So these numbers being very large, we're still only scratching the surface. And there is a role to play for employers to promote this, be advocates of pensions. There's also a role of everybody in the industry. That is the point of pension engagement season, amplifying the need for people to pay their pensions some attention. But there is also a place for product innovation, making it easy for people to buy a good value for money pension without any massive kind of sales process or barriers to buying it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it was John, wasn't it? Your friend John.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: John, um, probably found out, uh, his pension was and probably did AVCs, additional voluntary contributions.

Speaker B: Once he had a chat, he did some of the really good things that we advocate to people. He downloaded the pension providers. Apparently he had a look at what he'd got. He then used their projection tool to work out what he might get. He then thought, that's maybe not as much as I'd like. So we use the features of that projection tool to play about with if I paid a bit more. If I access my pension a bit later or a bit earlier, how would that change the numbers? He then got some numbers that he was comfortable with and he paid Morey. That is absolutely textbook about what we want people to do, because of course he. You haven't got a clue what your pension will give you unless you know those two critical points. What have I got and what might it be worth? It's why this year's strap lines of the Scottish Widow's Pension Engagement Season campaign is see it, know it and then grow it.

Speaker A: Great strap line, isn't it?

Speaker B: It's simple.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess if most people who just followed John's steps there, they probably find themselves in a better position circa 10, 20, 30 years when they're ready to actually retire.

Speaker B: They really would. We run, um, lots of different sessions about pensions. Sometimes we run sessions with the industry professionals and on one such session we asked a very open question. What is the biggest thing that will influence the size of somebody's pension? And the biggest thing, overwhelmingly, is how much you pay in. If you pay in just a slight little bit more, 1%, 2% more of salary, you'll be amazed at the difference it makes. Obviously, there's loads of other stuff. Start as early as you can. Make sure that you maximize your employer contributions, because many employers in the uk, if you pay a bit more, they'll pay a bit more too, which is fantastic. So there's lots of other things, but fundamentally the biggest thing that will influence the size of your pot is how much you pay in. And it is Goldilocks, not too much, not too little in terms of balancing your family finances. So really just pay as much as you can afford, but don't kick yourself if it doesn't feel like it's enough. At least you're paying something. And then try and make a deal with yourself to every year pay a little bit more, a little bit more.

Speaker A: From an employer's perspective, it's a great benefit, isn't it? Uh, employers could really leverage that as a really great benefit for the employees that, uh, yes, you get your salary, which everybody's aware of this year, every month. But let's not forget, you get in this extra additional on top off as well every month. So really actual it's X, because the additional pension that's paid doesn't appear on, um, that yearly salary, does it? It's a, it's a benefit. So they don't really see it. So the fact that they employ what we're getting out here, the employers are probably missing an opportunity for that.

Speaker B: They are. I mean, look, UK business is struggling in many places with additional costs through lots of different things. We won't go in that political space or. But the point I'm trying to make is some employers have less budget for pensions than others. But even if you're working with a pension provider that really is passionate about pension engagement, they will do the legwork for you to amplify the merits of paying your pension some attention. And it isn't all about the employer paying more money. It massively helps, but it isn't all about the employer paying more money. And you're right, every employer in the UK has to pay into pensions. That is the rules, people that are eligible. So if you're going to pay something, try and make the most of it. And actually, there's a whole host of employers that offer really generous arrangements if you pay more. Some of these employers don't just match it, they pay more in addition. Those are fantastic. And of course, those are the employers that you really want to be shouting about it, because people are missing out on free money. Your employer will pay an extra 50% of what you pay, as well as matching it. You're literally giving away free money. So free money, why wouldn't you do it?

Speaker A: Yeah. What other sort of innovations are in the pipeline to helping people start building more of a pension pot? Saving more or helping the, um. Self employed?

Speaker B: Yeah, we're back. And this is where we can talk about lots of things. Social media, place for digital, place for even gamification. Again, I go back to my simple strap line, See it, know it, grow it, See it is all about understanding what you've got. Technology can help you, whether that's the dashboard or whether that's embracing your pension provider's website or app. But you've got to go and do it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And also the next question comes very quickly. So what If I've got £10,000 in a pension, £250,000 in a pension, on one level, so what? The bigger the number, the more false sense of security you might be lulled into. Because actually, it's not about what you've got in your pension, it's about the next stage, the know it stage, which is knowing what it might give you when you get to the point that you do want to stop work or you do want to start moving towards your retirement, because £10,000 or £250,000 mean nothing. So again, it's about the engagement to help people understand, not just what they've got. But answer that question of whether it's enough. Whether it's enough for you or me is very personal. It's understanding what do I need in retirement? It's understanding am I still going to have a mortgage, am I renting and am I therefore going to continue to rent in retirement? It's understanding will I ever have an inheritance and therefore get some form of lump sum through that route? It's understanding what's my partner's pensions as well. Because you're a family, you're a team, it isn't just about you. And it's a massive part of the conversation about the gender pensions gap because a number of people's partners, be it man or woman, will have stayed at home to look after their children when they're little. And of course staying at home tends to be not unemployed position. But of course it means that their private pension provision wouldn't have necessarily accelerated as much as the person that was employed. So it's about embracing technology to understand what you've got, but most importantly whether it's enough for you. And once you've understood whether it's enough for you, then you're into that grow it stage. And of course if it's not enough for you. I'm back to my John story where he has embraced his pension app. He's gone and had a look at how much it might give him. He's then worked out that actually he probably needs to pay a bit more and he's then come to a comfortable arrangement of how much he pays. That's not going to bust his family finances, but it is going to make a significant difference to his future. And that for me is the key. If people through the dashboard or through embracing their pension app can find out, uh, not just what they've got, but establish that whether it's enough and then work out what the next step of action is. Absolutely what we want people to do.

Speaker A: You mentioned there social media. How do you think social media can help with that? Is that driven from the government, employers, the industry, Scottish widows as an organization

Speaker B: itself, all of that, all of that M modern society. You don't tend to buy a newspaper now, do you? Yeah, the pub seems to have gone from a UK institution to either non existent. The amount of pubs closing in the UK is pretty galling. Even sitting in a cafe and having a coffee, people tend to not talk to each other. They tend to be sat there on their phone scrolling through social media. So you've got to take these messages to where the audience are looking and the audience are looking at social media. Now, whether that is Facebook, Instagram, obviously many different social media platforms we can mention. Whether it's TikTok, if you look at some of the viewing numbers, that as a three examples of social media, the scale of viewing on Facebook is good. Instagram is another level again. And TikTok, you're talking about millions of views, millions of views, not just thousands or tens of thousands. So actually being able to embrace all of those social media platforms, you're starting to capture where people are looking. And we then need to talk about trust. Lee. Right, so why did you do something? Because my mate down the pub told me to. That is in modern UK society now. But why did you do it? Because it was your mate, because you trusted that person, you valued their opinion. So that's where in social media land, that's where the role of the influencer comes. Pay your pension some attention. Campaign has used a recognized face to lead their campaign every year. Year's lead is Ross Kemp.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a different thing. Pretty strong character.

Speaker B: Yeah. And where will you know Ross Kemp from, though?

Speaker A: EastEnders.

Speaker B: Exactly. Most people will know from the soap opera, one of the Mitchell brothers. And actually that's quite a tenuous link. Would you have trusted the Mitchell brothers in terms of their character on EastEnders? Yeah, a slice against Ross. But the point is he's recognizable. You're taking something, a message that's coming from a recognized person. And actually Ross is having a massive bit of fun, um, talking about how you can strengthen your pension. He's in the gym. Superb. So there's. So you're blending a trustworthy source, a bit of fun and people making it, therefore, something memorable so they actually will go and do something. Those are all the key for me.

Speaker A: Um, given that you work closely with employers, is there something more that employers could do for their employees in that space? Is there any ideas or innovations that you've got going on in the background that you could share?

Speaker B: Now we talk about social media. I'm talking about your personal device. Looking at personal social media platform. Yeah, obviously there's LinkedIn, which is an industry, not pensions, but, uh, a sort of a workplace platform, social media for work, if you like. Lots of different employers have social media in place in their own internal networks. Whether that's a yammer, whether that's a Viva, Engage, whatever it is. There's internal social media as part of the business that you work in as well. And actually where employers get it really right is where they blend that message through social media space. Because I talked about trust. A, uh, massive point to social media is do you trust the source? Now, most people trust their employer. So actually if it's coming via your employer in terms of its own social media, that trust barrier shouldn't be there straight away. And of course, there's another aspect to employers cascading their own message through their own network. Lots of larger employers tend to have advocacy networks, whether that's a, uh, minority group, whether that's neurodivergent, whatever it is, that tends to be an advocacy group and that's an audience that are passionate about their subject, but they're also a community. So there's a community aspect to social media as well. Why do people follow particular Instagram stars? Actually? Because they like that person. But it starts to build a community, doesn't it? And that's actually what happens in the workplace as well. Whether it's, uh, a, uh, sort of, as I say, an advocacy group for something like neurodivergence. I pick that because it is something quite close to my heart. One of my grandsons recently has been diagnosed with a neurodivergent condition. So actually having that kind of advocacy in the workplace and saying that you're inclusive, you're welcome, and actually there are some subtle things that we can do to really help that community. That's absolutely fantastic. And if that group you can then use to discuss what is important in the world, such as retirement planning, all the better as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can see the value in, um, encouraging it could significantly help. Where do you see this pension and digitalization going in the next five to 10 years? What do you see is the horizon for this?

Speaker B: Yeah, so the digital revolution has been going for a long time. Most people, they got online, they then had apps. We talked about social media, but actually the innovation right now, and I touched on it with fun. People tend to remember something either with food or with fun. Um, yeah, if you're going to have a bit of fun, probably can't go too far wrong by playing a game. The industry right now is starting to gamify some of this, simulating some of this. You may have heard of the Scottish widow's pension mirror. It's won its 19th award only recently. It's incredible. It's a quick bit of fun that guesses your age. That is the nub of the game. It guesses your age just by looking at it, just by having your smartphone camera open. And if you're going to give it a try, Lee, have a bit of natural Light around you.

Speaker A: I don't want it to guess my age.

Speaker B: Don't smile because those little lines that come in your eyes when you give it away, it thinks you're a bit older, but it's a great bit of fun because you're nervous. Is it going to get you right age? Is it going to insult you?

Speaker A: Is it going to.

Speaker B: It actually doesn't matter. It's that anticipation. You're starting to remember what's going on. The Pension Mirror has been a fantastic success with that one. Simple Elements of fun. What it then does is assuming it's guessed your age right and you can correct it if it's not. It then tells you what the average pot size is for pension across the UK for somebody of that age. And again, you've now got the next wonderful element of a game. You've got intrigue. Now that intrigue is mine's not as big as that or mine's bigger than that. So I'm all. Or actually, I'm about right. It doesn't actually matter the size of your pension compared to what Pension Mirror is presenting you with. It's getting that intrigue because the last bit is the critical bit. It's asking you to either download the Scottish Widows app or it's taking you to the Scottish Widows app if you've already got it downloaded and then you can start to see for yourself. And that bit of fun has moved you into. Yeah, and actually the next element of fun is it's shareable. So the amount of people that have taken to social media to plaster what their Pension Mirror age is galling. And I could think of a wonderful colleague of mine that she always chastised herself because Pension Mirror can never get her below a certain age. And of course that age is not what she is. So it's a lovely. It's a lovely bit of fun that sometimes can be a subtle insult, but actually it is only that it's a bit of fun to get you intrigued about pensions and then get you connected to your pension. But games have moved on now, so Pension Mirror is fantastic and we use it. We were using it only yesterday on, um, site at a very large employer. We actually run out of paper because, um, when we're on site, you get a printout of what your picture is and what your age is. And we actually ran out of paper because there was so many people wanted to go on it. But the games have moved on now, so we're experimenting with different games. There's a job dash game that you might be able to find on social media right now. And that's about educating people around that number of jobs in their lifetime. Point. It basically takes you through a career. It takes you through working, maybe in a cafe, collecting glasses, maybe in a pizza shop, avoiding the pizza toppings. And then it takes you to a different level of your career, maybe into a manufacturing industry place. And it's a levels game, a bit like one of the Nintendo type arrangements. Again, a bit of fun. But along the way there's a bit of education about pensions and it's subtly explaining that you might therefore accumulate more than one pension in your lifetime. You need to keep a track on it and there are ways to keep a track on it, whether that's connecting them through your app so you can see all of your finances in one place, or whether it's actually combining your pension. So all of your pension monies are in your current employer's workplace pension. But again, we're trialing these games. It's all about getting people involved. And the more that people can get involved and as I say, the more that people have fun, they'll remember it.

Speaker A: Is there any other sort of ones that you're trialling outside the job game, anything like that?

Speaker B: Uh, teeing me up here, LE was part of the Scottish Widow's pension engagement season support. We're just about to launch a brand new game. So we've got Pension Mirror, we've got jobdash, we've got lots of other bits of fun within the Scottish Widows app to try and bring pensions to life. But we're about to launch a brand new game and it'll be all about pension planning. But the critical aspects of this particular game. So I'm not going to give too much away, the critical aspects of this particular game is you can create your own avatar, your own caricature of yourself. So it's starting to make that game personalized. It's not a game you're playing. It's taking the aspects that people have in various different games literally in the gaming industry, whether it's a skin that you can put on your avatar or whether it's your simple change of hair color. No hair. Whatever aspect of that particular caricature you want, you can start to make it look like you and create it like you. And that's an aspect of this game. So it's that personalization piece that we're trying to embrace.

Speaker A: Yeah. Which is very common in the gaming world, isn't it? I've, uh, got two teenage boys and they constantly talking about I want that skin and this skin.

Speaker B: And yeah, so they're incentivized and you're having to pay the V bucks or whatever it is, which is cash at

Speaker A: the end of the day, but for them it's called whatever it is in the game currency.

Speaker B: And you might find a feature of the Scottish Widows game that you get more skins when you've got more in your pension. Uh, but, yeah, we shall see. But we're due to launch it by the end of September. Perfectly in time for people to play along that pension engagement season.

Speaker A: Are they open for anybody to play or are they only for. If you're a Scottish Widows pension member, are they open to the wider public?

Speaker B: Pension Mirror is available to everybody, literally. Pensionmirror.co.uk. any of the people that are listening to this, whether they've got a Scottish widow's pension or not, you're very welcome to use it. Jobdash is the same. So I imagine we'll continue that theme because inclusivity is the point, actually. We want people to consider, we talk about that self employed community. We want people to consider pensions. And if ultimately a game encourages them to do, then we're very happy for them to. It's not the main point of the game. The main point of the game is awareness, but we are very happy for them to then embrace a pension result.

Speaker A: Yeah, I really enjoyed this. Obviously a big part of this is going to be financial education. What role do you see financial education in helping people understand more about the

Speaker B: pensions then when I first started, I never knew a thing about pensions, hadn't got a clue. I think that's unfair. I probably knew that there was a pension because actually I used to go to the post office with my nan and she used to collect her, uh, pensions. So we should also talk about the place of state pensions, Lee. But from an education perspective, it is all about awareness, getting people to understand that they need to take some control themselves. It isn't just going to be done for them. Yes, auto enrolment is fantastic, but it does only part of the job. It gets you started on the ladder. You need to actually go up the rungs yourself. And I think there's a massive part to play in the education system in the uk, whether that's primary school, secondary school. I remember towards the latter part of secondary school I had something called general studies and it's where you talked about the economy and how the world works and how money works. But I went to a grammar school. I was very lucky to be able to Have a school so close to where I live of that quality. Not everybody has that. And unfortunately, some of the education system that we've got just doesn't have space for this type of arrangement. So, actually, you see a whole host of people. There's colleagues of mine that volunteer to offer sessions in school. There's financial advisors that I know that volunteer to run sessions in school. One of them even runs a radio show that occasionally talks about pensions. Point is, education should start very early, managing money should start very early, and it should actually. A piece of the pie that's massively missing in the UK is this education piece in schools.

Speaker A: Yeah. And we mentioned regulation a little bit earlier. Is that something that you're aware, is the government looking at, or should they be looking at? Or is it just going to take a lot of really determined individuals to go out to the schools and offer something to them that they could use? Where does it come from? Where's the catalyst?

Speaker B: Uh, look, the curriculum, of course, you

Speaker A: haven't got a crystal ball, have you?

Speaker B: But the curriculum is already packed and is a question for politicians to push into that curriculum a module about financial services, about how money works and all that sort of stuff. One of the webinars that we run at Scottish Widows is all about new to saving. And we explain a pay slip, we explain the tax system, we explain national insurance. And these are for people that are new to saving. They're in the working environment, though they've probably had 15 years prior that they could have learned about this had it been in school. So I agree there is a part to play in making sure it comes in the curriculum. There is also a part to play for schools locally to actually provide space. There are so many barriers to schools not allowing external people in for quite right reasons, of course, in terms of child safety. There are also background checks and monitoring that can be put in place to make sure that it's a trustworthy individual coming in to run this type of arrangement. So there's a place for curriculum, but there is a place for willing schools locally. And then, of course, that all of this is a voluntary piece. There's fantastic work done by parent teacher associations that probably is the right place. And usually it just takes somebody who works in the financial services industry to feel quite passionate about it and knock on the door of that pta, be given a job, unpaid, of course. Go and talk. Talk money with the children and pensions, or indeed money more generally, is the same topic. And, uh, I think we all should be advocates of that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah. Is There any, um, Fintech platforms, innovations that you're aware of that, uh, can help serve this or help this area of the financial education?

Speaker B: So there's a raft of things. So I talk about webinars at Scottish Widows, we've actually recorded some shorter webinars that are designed for younger people and we've shared them with schools and schools can use those as part of their classroom. There's a place for financial institutions in terms of product. So, uh, again, I won't name the bank, but they offer a child's account where you can personalize the card. They also allow you to then set little tasks for the child that they'll get a payment, pocket money, effectively. So there's a place for product, but also as part of that, there's a place for apps as well, making sure that children are safe online, but also making sure that the content is fun and educational. So go back to that conversation about gamifying. If you could gamify something connected with finances for the younger community, that will start to get them on that road to education about finances.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Also as well, just something that's come to my head there, the onboarding of new employees into companies. It's a great opportunity to insert something there around.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: That's a great area for introducing new employees to the pension and things very much.

Speaker B: And one size doesn't fit all. What resonates with you or I will be very different. Some people like something tangible that they can read in print. Some people prefer it on their phone. Some people prefer to turn up to a session where they can listen and ask questions. So that actually is what an employer needs to do. They need to embrace all of that. They also need to have a pension provider that is innovative in terms of its welcome material. And again, at Scottish Widows, we've got a raft of support and we do support inclusivity in this particular area. We still issue paper packs, but we also place them online and we also allow video content. So we have welcome videos for people to literally welcome to the pension. We've got their attention. Let's get them connected to our app and when they're in that, in our app, let's also get them on that road of seeing it, knowing it and potentially growing it. And we need to talk about something that's really seriously, as part of this pension planning piece, I, uh, talked about a pension could be £10,000, it could be £250,000. It doesn't actually matter how much it is. It could be 25p if, unfortunately, the Worst happens, the value of that pension. In the vast majority of cases, some pension types are slightly different, but the value of that pension is payable to your family. Now, one of the pieces we advocate on almost every single conversation we have about pensions is people completing their nomination of beneficiary. It's uber important. It's like a will for your pension. And of course, not everybody does a will, but a nomination is really simple. It'll take you literally two minutes to do. You just say who you want your money to go to, you give us your wishes. It takes two seconds and then it's done. Life changes, you just change it. It's no problem at all. So I was talking to an employer during this last week. They've got 37% of their people that have a nomination against their pension. That's fantastic because actually, across all pensions we see single digit percentage of people to nomination against their pension. There's lots of reasons why they've not done it. They didn't know they needed to. Again, it's in that pile for a day that never comes to get around to do it. Lots of reasons why people don't. It might be that they thought they've done it already because if you're employed, a lot of people have death in service, the employer tends to make it compulsory for you to return a piece of paper that says where you want the money paid. Uh, people don't connect up, but that isn't also for pension. So actually that employer, fantastically engaged employer, they're taking a piece of work away to overlay the people that have made a nomination on their death in service with the people that have made a nomination, pension, and they're going to talk to the community that have got one or other, but not both. So they're actually going to be really targeted with their killing.

Speaker A: It's worth adding as well that if you have nominated your beneficiary perhaps maybe five or 10 years ago, that your situation may have changed, you may now be living with somebody else under your roof.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: But that pension is still potentially. Now, obviously you can't go through the process, can't you, if the worst case happens. But it just becomes complicated at a time when you could probably do without it, couldn't it? So it's always worth revisiting.

Speaker B: The point of a nomination is we can quickly pay the money out. We don't need to wait for wills, probate, all of letters of administration, which is the. Unfortunately, the process in the uk, if we have a death certificate and a valid Nomination. And, um, the person instructing us is in agreement with that nomination. It could be paid very quickly. But I've got a wonderful colleague that tells a story about you never, always stay with the person that you're married to. And it might be that tomorrow you actually want to make your nomination to your friend next door who puts the bins out for you. It very much is, life changes. It's really easy to amend your nomination. You just make a new one. And the other tip I'll, uh, give to our listeners and I heard this from a very wise chap called Mike. When you're making a nomination, it might be that you're making a nomination to your spouse. But unfortunately, if the worst happens, the really worst might happen in that you both might die at the same time or indeed your spouse might predecease you. And in that circumstance, that nomination would be invalid. So always consider who your next nomination would be to. And it might be to your children, and it might be that you wouldn't want them to have the money while your spouse is alive. But in your nomination list, your spouse list your children 99% to your spouse, 1% or more to one or more of your children. And that just gives us the flexibility that if the really worst were to happen, then even then that nomination would be nicely prepared. But, yeah, really serious conversation. But it is totally fundamental to pension.

Speaker A: We did touch on earlier a little bit about onboarding that employers could perhaps maybe encourage or help pension awareness in that area. What other areas is that employers could step up and help people with that awareness and what to do, not just perhaps mean pension, but when it comes to retirement. Because that's a significant stage in someone's life, isn't it? And, uh, for someone who's worked for 30, 40 years, 45 years, suddenly to come up to that retirement stage and then think, now what is there? What can employers do?

Speaker B: Look, I always talk about key milestones in an employer's business. Induction would be one, a graduate program would be another. We talked about advocacy groups. There are also flex windows, maybe a time of the year when bonuses are communicated and you might consider putting some of it into your pension. Maybe you'd be lucky enough to get a pay rise and he might consider putting some of it into your pension. But as you allude to there, there are also points where people's life comes towards thinking about finishing work and it's whether they're the employer's providing a course on redeployment of skills, or whether the employer is providing A support from a financial advisor or whether actually they're just allowing people who are in the later years thinking about stopping work, trying to bring to life how pensions might work for them and how a retirement workshop is very different to a basic see it, know it, grow it conversation. Some people who are coming to a retirement workshop think it's too late. It's never too late. You can always pay a little bit more into pensions and you absolutely doesn't matter how long you've got until you want to access it, because you might have employer matching, because you'll have some tax relief, or indeed you might be saving national insurance through a salary exchange arrangement. It is never too late to pay into a pension, but the retirement workshop, it'll start to explain not just what the pension is, but how you can access it. A 20 year old doesn't need to know that you can access a pension in a variety of different ways, they just need to know it's a saving for your future. But somebody in their 50s might be starting to think about, am I going to take a lump sum from my pension? Am I going to take an income? Where does state pension fit in here? I talked about there's lots of different things to think about in terms of future need for income. It could be that you've got other sources of income, whether that's property, another source of income through investments or indeed inheritance. All of these things need to be thought about by somebody approaching retirement to really understand what are their income needs, not just expenses, but what other sources of income. And this is again where people need to think about. And actually the employer might offer a workshop where you're allowed to bring your partner in is actually when you, when it comes to retirement, you're a team the whole way through life, you're still a team in retirement. In my situation, my dad retired much earlier than my mum and my mum was still working for a significant amount of years, so their pension planning was ever so slightly different in that period. So that's what people need to understand. So retirement workshops, fantastic time. Because actually you're embracing people that have usually had a really long and fruitful career, but you're also supporting people at a critical moment, particularly those that think it's too late. And, um, never, ever, as I've said, never too late.

Speaker A: Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, that was brilliant advice. Although it's not advice. Suggestions, pointers.

Speaker B: We talk about advice.

Speaker A: Should we go there?

Speaker B: Yeah, let's talk about advice. Right. People always say thanks for your advice. You just did it there.

Speaker A: I did yeah, we've been having a

Speaker B: discussion about factual information. I might have been giving you some guidance around some things to think about. But advice is telling you what to do based on assessing your circumstance. And actually there is a place for advice. There is totally a place for advice, particularly in that retirement conversation. How should I make this pot of money work best for me? What's the biggest pitfall in retirement? Running out of money while I'm still around. That's the biggest pitfall in retirement.

Speaker A: That's the biggest. One of the biggest fears, isn't it as well of retirees?

Speaker B: Totally. So again, it needs to be Goldilocks. Don't take too much, but don't take too little, because if you've got, uh, a load of money left over when you reach your last day, actually you've undershot, so to speak. You could have enjoyed yourself more.

Speaker A: You could have enjoyed it.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a massive place for advice the whole way through the retirement planning process, but particularly at the point of accessing your money, if you do make a wrong decision at that point, it could be catastrophic. You could take too much out of your pot too early and it means that you literally will be left with nothing apart from the state pension. But equally, it could be if you are taking perhaps a flexible income, and many people do now, they don't tend to buy what's called an annuity, they don't buy that guaranteed income for the rest of their life. They access their pot flexibly and again, the biggest risk there is exhausting it too early. And there's a part to play there in terms of where your money's invested to make sure that your investments, ah, are giving you a suitable level of growth to sustain that pot up until your life expectancy. There's a massive part to play for financial advice in that. And of course there are some wonderful things in pensions to break down the costs of that. Because most people want advice, but when they see how much it costs, they perhaps shy away from it. But most pensions have either got a pension advice allowance or something called advisor charging, and it's a facility where you can effectively make your pension fund pay the professional fees much more accessible. Because who's got a couple of thousand if not more pounds lying around, especially at a point where you're trying to concentrate on the pennies. But actually, if a small proportion of your pension fund can pay for that professional advice, fantastic.

Speaker A: I mean, this has been an absolute brilliant conversation. Um, we come up to the closing reflections and quick fire questions which try and Finish most podcasts off with. I probably think I might know the answer to this one. But, um, what advice would you give to your younger self then, Stuart? I love hearing people's experience and wisdom of what they would say to their younger selves. That doesn't include I'll, uh, pay more into my pension.

Speaker B: So, you know, that is exactly what I was going to say.

Speaker A: Yeah, I thought you might. So I'll just take that one away.

Speaker B: Oh, you can't do that to me. Genuinely, that's what I was going to say because I was lucky enough to be placed into a pension. But it was a pension and I'm showing my age now. It was a pension of the type that you didn't really make any decisions on. You were just put into it and it did give you a reasonable amount. But even then I wish I'd pay more. I really wish I'd paid more. And, uh, that is my advice to my younger self. I wish I'd paid more. My other advice to my younger self is don't be so scared. Sometimes the fear of failure. And this is a whole different podcast if you want it, Lenny. But the fear of failure stops so many people from doing things. I've had some wonderful opportunities, some of them I've grasped, some of them have stepped by and actually don't be quite as fearful would be my advice to my younger self.

Speaker A: Yeah, great advice. And, um, if you had a magic wand and you could wish for one significant change in pension industry, what would you wish for?

Speaker B: Can I get two?

Speaker A: Yes, you can have two.

Speaker B: You can have three even if you want. It's a blend. Oh, it's blendly. We talked about education in schools, so getting people much more educated about the financial system system would be my magic wand.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But coupled with that, embracing the success of auto enrollment for the employed community across all, that would be my magic wand.

Speaker A: So you mean the self employed?

Speaker B: Self employed, even people that aren't employed, you can pay into a pension if you've got no earnings in the uk, as long as you've got a source of wealth, you can pay into a pension. You don't need to earn money to have a pension. Annual allowance. Everybody can pay at least £3,000 a year gross into a pension if they wish. And actually, yeah, how can we take the good parts of auto enrolment and apply it to all of those areas that auto enrolment hasn't applied? And, uh, my third one, because you gave me three, how can we, in a magic wand way, accelerate people getting to the level of contribution that they need to get to to have a comfortable income in retirement? Advertisement Report advocates 12%. Actually, we started to suggest that for a comfortable retirement, not just a reasonable retirement, for a comfortable retirement, it's actually more like 15%. And if I had a magic wand, it's a massive balance. I know the government don't want to stress employers too far in terms of their own budgets, and the last thing they want to do is ask employers to pay more into pensions. But we all know it's the right thing to do. So magic wand to balance the finances and just increase those contribution rates to water.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And where can listeners go to stay informed and keep up to date with pension developments and how the industry is changing, evolving, and helping them in their retirement? What resources are available out there for them?

Speaker B: Lots. I would start. If you've got a pension, follow your pension provider on social media. We at, uh, Scottish Widows have lots of insight that we share with our, uh, customers. We do most of it through social media. We do some of it through our digital channels. So just embrace as much as you can in terms of that pension, uh, development space.

Speaker A: And finally, last one, what's your favorite book you've read or, uh, your favorite podcast you listen to?

Speaker B: I'm going to go for a weird one with a book. The librarian in my school knew my father, which could be an altogether different category, but actually we got on really well. And occasionally I'd volunteer to help out in there, uh, and occasionally she'd give me some tips for a book to read. And there's a book called the Long Walk by. I forget the name, but the surname is Roritz and it's obviously a Polish name. Uh, it talks about the journey of a prisoner of war walking across Siberia. And for a teenage boy, it was enthralling. It shouldn't have been enthralling. It was ridiculous to ask a teenage boy to read that book, but it was enthralling and it really, really stuck with me forever. And it really was a tale of struggle and toil, but not giving up. And that was the point of the book. Now, decades later, I still remember the story. My favorite podcast, I gotta go for the Scottish Widows podcast. Look, a colleague of mine runs those podcasts. I might have been on them once or twice about a whole variety of topics. I probably should have said that's where our, uh, listeners can go to, to stay in touch with pension developments. Robert's latest podcast is actually about the role of TikTok in pensions engagement and it is incredible. Incredible. We've had guests on there from the financial advisor community, from actual employers that have worked in the pensions department of their business, right through to different parts of the the pension industry. Really insightful podcast. Worth a listen.

Speaker A: Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. Really enjoyed it. Loads, uh, of information there, lots of helpful tips and pointers and yeah, really good. Thank you.

Speaker B: Been wonderful to talk to you.

Speaker A: Well, that's it for today's episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure to hit the subscribe and leave us a review. You can also check out more episodes from the Fund Retirement Podcast Network for more insights and stories. Thanks again for listening and hope you have a great day.