‘If only…’
Petra Maréchal, director Pension & Capital at Yellowtail Conclusion: “Retirement has a huge impact on people’s lives. I recently spoke to someone who only discovered when he retired that he had actually worked longer than necessary. He said: ‘If only I had known that I could have stopped earlier. Then I would have been able to spend much more time with my family and my hobbies.’ In fact, this man missed out on a bit of happiness in life, simply because he didn’t know that stopping work earlier was an option. This illustrates how important it is for people to receive guidance in making choices about their pension.”
From figures to user experience
Arnoud Brons, senior consultant at Ortec Finance: “You can only make a good choice if you have insight into your financial situation. Suppose you are considering taking advantage of the option to withdraw 10% of your pension when you retire (an option that may soon become available to everyone). Then it is nice to know what the consequences are. And what if you are divorced and have to give part of your pension to your ex-partner? People need insight into the total picture of their individual financial situation, in the broad sense, in order to make the right choices. At Ortec Finance we are all about calculations, we can offer participants exactly the information they need. But it is about how you translate that to their personal situation in an appealing way. Scenario graphs and figures mean little to people. That is why we are happy with the collaboration with Yellowtail Conclusion, they bring all the data together, combine it with business logic and, thanks to their knowledge of user experience, communication and customer journeys, they know how to convert this into accessible information for the user.”
Grey area
Petra: “In line with the Future Pensions Act (Wtp), the AFM has issued the ‘choice guidance’ guideline, which states that pension funds and pension administrators must guide their participants in such a way that they can make a good choice for their pension. This guideline contains quite a few grey areas, which means that funds and administrators are free in the way they give substance to this choice guidance. For example, this could mean that a pension fund or pension administrator only provides a participant with insight into the effect on the pension that has been built up with that party only, when available choices are made. But if you only present the data of the current pension fund or the current pension administrator, then you are not helping a participant with that. The total picture is missing. We wanted to do something about that.” Arnoud: “The tool that we have developed is at the highest ambition level of the AFM guideline. Someone not only sees the data of their current pension fund or pension administrator, but also that of pension funds or pension administrators where they were previously a participant, if desired also of the partner. And with additions such as savings, investments, annuity payments, mortgages and other income and expenditure, you complete the overview: overview and insight on the basis of which the right pension choices can be made. This tool offers that and takes participants along in an easy way.
Visuals, gamification and AI
Petra: “Together with Ortec Finance, we have developed a tool that really reasons from the participant’s perspective. A tool that answers questions based on the participant’s data, such as: when can I stop working, how much money do I need for certain plans, can I retire at the same time as my partner, etc. The tool therefore works very specifically for the participant. In addition, we are now also experimenting with AI. Can we use all the sources we have to let the tool answer a number of questions from a participant? Then you can answer questions very specifically and really tailor them to the specific needs of the user. Based on this, you achieve higher conversion. To make the process more fun, we have also incorporated many visuals and lessons from gamification into the tool. For example, participants can create an avatar themselves and there are elements that you can only ‘unlock’ after a number of required actions. This is quite subtle, but it does work. We measure how people behave within the tool. Which visuals does someone look at for longer? Where does someone get stuck? This also allows us to check whether people understand things. With the feedback on user experience, we can continue to improve the tool and make it more personal. Everything to enable people to make the right choices. Because those choices can be very decisive.”
Hybrid approach
Arnoud: ‘By using the tool via the pension portal, pension funds and pension administrators are taking a big step towards good choice guidance. A participant can then get started themselves. But I can also imagine that he or she will do this partly or entirely together with an advisor or a pension consultant from the fund or administrator (‘hybrid’). Research shows that participants like to be helped by a pension consultant with these kinds of difficult choices. With this combination, pension funds and pension administrators can help their participants in a targeted manner to take the right steps now for a financially pleasant life later.’
