Smart Pension developing ‘financial well-being’ solution powered by Envizage holistic guidance engine

Workplace pension provider Smart Pension has announced it is developing an intuitive online 'financial well-being' solution to help people make informed decisions about their money and enable them to achieve a financially secure future.

Incorporating elements of e-learning, and in collaboration with UK holistic guidance engine Envizage, the household life planning application will use Envizage's data-driven future analytics simulation to deliver a highly sophisticated scenario modelling approach that will guide people in a simple way through the maze of trade-offs and choices they face when planning for their futures.

Will Wynne, Smart Pension co-founder and MD, said: "Over half the UK population lacks even the most basic level of financial resilience. Making a dent in this enormous social issue is a priority for Smart Pension and Envizage.

"The aim is to offer a holistic and robust set of data-driven planning experiences and lessons to guide all individuals along a learning path to enable them to manage their money and finances better, regardless of where they hold their savings.

"In some cases, this might involve moving some of the contributions they have with us to other products via different providers. While this isn't the type of guidance most financial services companies would usually provide, we believe financial well-being and supporting social good are much more effective and sustainable ways of supporting our members and their families."

Designed using insights derived from Smart Pension's user research department, the approach will eventually overtake the often clunky, unrealistic, and narrow tools available in the market today, offering a new and intuitive, progressive discovery journey including bite-sized e-learning around complex topics such as compound interest, tax and transaction fees.

In some cases, the output could even suggest savers should slightly reduce their pension savings in favour of another product, such as life insurance.

Vinjay Jayaram, co-founder and CEO of Envizage, said: "Smart Pension's vision of enabling a new generation of savers to understand their pathway to a better future aligns well with the Envizage mission. Our analytics are realistic; they use credible data to consider what can go wrong in the future and what an individual or household can do to fix it. We are delighted Smart Pension has partnered with us on its new financial planning solution. We believe this initiative can make a big difference to the lives of Smart Pension's members. Together, we look forward to helping people make sense of an uncertain future, and make better, more informed decisions leading to better outcomes."

The life planning application is currently being developed by Smart's dedicated innovation team and is part of its evolving Innovation Roadmap. Earlier this year the firm was the first pension platform to deliver Smart speaker technology via Alexa home hubs and Google Home as well as a Smart Employee app which allows members to view pension data in real time on their phone, change contribution levels and self-select funds remotely.

Smart recently announced it has partnered with Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) to offer the first DC guided retirement pathway aimed at demystifying decumulation planning by offering members a simple 'four pot' option to include 'active years', 'later life', 'rainy days' and 'inheritance'.

The product is due to be delivered in Q1 2019.