Financial Services Research 2024

08.50 Registration & coffee

09.20 Opening comments from the Chair

09.30 PANEL

Navigating Labour: what does a change of Government mean for financial services, consumers and the economy?

The electorate has spoken and a new government takes the reigns. But what does this mean for the Financial Services Industry? What will a new Labour government hold in store for consumers, investors and advisers and what impact will their policies have on our finances and the economy?

Join this expert panel, fresh from the Autumn party conferences, as they explore key trends impacting financial consumers and advisers and examine the potential opportunities (or repercussions) of a leftward shift in politics over the next five years.

Chaired by:
Adam Drummond, Head of Political Polling, Opinium

Panellists:
Joe Dharampal-Hornby, Head of Public Affairs and Communications, UKSIF
Tamara Dewhirst, Head of Public affairs, Virgin Money
James Crouch, Head of Public Affairs, Opinium

10.00 Climbing the ladder: exploring the first-time buyer journey

Find out how innovative methodologies, strong stakeholder engagement, and cutting-edge AI is helping Principality Building Society (PBS) to meet the needs of first-time buyers.

Working with Verve, PBS launched a multifaceted research program to address the growing challenges faced by first-time homebuyers by exploring the homebuying journey and ensuring the needs of aspiring homeowners were embedded into its strategy.

Examine how the research highlighted the emotional and financial challenges faced by first-time homebuyers, the importance of nuanced support, and the need for inclusive, representative marketing. In addition, hear how the innovative use of AI helped to embed the insight with stakeholders to drive new product propositions and influence PBS's approach to supporting aspiring homeowners. 

Anna Williams, Executive Director, Insight, Verve 
Lucy Tarrant, Research Manager, Principality Building Society

10.30 How research united HSBC behind an ‘internationalist’ brand

Years of volatility have led financial institutions to pursue short-term goals over long-term brand health. But in 2020, HSBC had a wake-up call when it fell from Kantar’s list of the world’s most valuable brands. Since then, HSBC has established a brand target audience and has made significant investment in a global brand building campaign, the first for 10 years, to reconnect with them. As a result, its brand has grown 17% in value in one year.

This session will show how this extraordinary turnaround has been achieved. It will examine the innovative insight methodologies deployed. And it will explore how HSBC defined its unifying target audience, and developed a set of brand metrics that would work for the whole group.

Alex Wright, Director of Client Partnerships, Kantar

In conversation with:
Sebastian Mitchinson, Group Insight Manager, HSBC
Joshua Sorene, Head of Brand & Reputation Insights, HSBC

11.00-11.30 Morning refreshments

11.30 Rewarding customers in financial transactions: a new AI-powered research approach

Reward programmes hold great potential when it comes to boosting customer engagement. However, all too often the programmes fall short of meeting customers’ expectations and needs. This case study will show how Strive Insight & Western Union implemented an innovative research approach to ensure the company’s rewards programme drove better customer experience and increased brand loyalty.

Explore how combining generative AI tools, traditional research methodologies and a behavioural science lens has led to significantly enhanced customer relationship-building efforts and contributed to the development of more impactful, customer-centric loyalty programs.

Iain Aikman, Director, Strive Insight
Sophie Royds, Senior Research Executive, Strive Insight
Giuseppe Tonolini, Director, Strive Insight
Hadi Hedayati-Rad, Leader - Global Consumer Research & Insights, Western Union

12.00 Exploring financial wellbeing with synthetic data

Financial wellbeing is a complex, sensitive and changeable measure. The Aegon Financial Wellbeing tracker has provided regular, timely insight but ensuring a consistently accurate and representative sample requires prudent management.

In the search for measures that might reduce such a burden, FlexMR and Aegon embarked on a set of experiments with synthetic data – seeking to answer whether sufficiently trained AI models could play a role. Specifically, the team aimed to test whether synthetic data can augment complex survey responses in a number of ways, such as completing partial responses, boosting sample sizes and re-weighting datasets.

Hear the fascinating results and the wider implications they have for sensitive financial services research.

Paul Hudson, CEO, FlexMR
Dr Thomas Mathar, Insights Manager - Centre for Behavioural Research, Aegon

12.30 PANEL

Duty-bound: from vulnerability to inclusion across financial services

Every person will be in a vulnerable circumstance at some point in their lives and half of us will be in a vulnerable situation at any one time. There are many reasons a person can become vulnerable, whether it be a health related issue, a life event or a financial shock … and the impacts could be temporary or permanent – everyone’s situation is different.   In this panel, four experts from across financial services will discuss different lenses on vulnerability, and what it takes to move towards addressing the needs and discovering best practices for building strategies and remedies for those who find themselves in vulnerable circumstances.

Chaired by:
Lisa Edgar, Chief Executive Officer, the Big Window Consulting

Panellists:
Diana Kamil-Salmon, Head of Engagement, Fair4All Finance
Nel Mooij, Head of Product - Home, Tesco Bank
Dorothy Liviabella, Head of Vulnerable Customer Strategy, Santander UK
Maxine Pritchard, Head of Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability, HSBC

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00 From static to dynamic: advanced approaches to predicting financial vulnerability

Traditional models of identifying financial vulnerability are inadequate. The FCA reports that over 24 million people in the UK display characteristics of vulnerability, a figure that demands more dynamic and nuanced approaches.

The Wisdom Council’s innovative model for predicting an individual's ability to cope with financial challenges, emphasises the importance of moving beyond static life events. It combines behavioural insights with robust data science methodologies to develop a predictive model of vulnerability characteristics.

Hear how this predictive model is informing client support strategies and ultimately contributing to better customer outcomes, and aligning with regulatory expectations.

Anna Lane, CEO, The Wisdom Council
Michael Fisher, Head of Data, The Wisdom Council
Client to be announced

14.30 Redefining the future of a heritage financial brand

One of the oldest names in Financial Services, Alliance Trust, faced a significant challenge; its powerful heritage was starting to make the brand feel dated, belying its cutting-edge investment approach. So, how do you take a brand with that much history and make it feel modern and exciting for new, younger investors?

This case study explores how a brand embraced a new approach to research and so was able to redefine its future by gaining a better understanding of its audience.  Hear how research informed the strategy and creative campaign for the new brand identity launched in May 2024. 

Luke Cadman, Senior Partner, Flood and Partners
Will Wright, Client Services Director, Libertine
Mark Atkinson, Senior Director, Client Management, Wealth & Retail, Alliance Trust

15.00 A new digital divide

The UK is steadily becoming more digitally-inclined, with the financial services sector in particular now leaning increasingly towards a ‘digital first’ approach.  But things are not always what they seem. Quadrangle has been tracking the UK’s digital engagement since 2016 and this year their research revealed a worrying hidden truth; some of the people who are amongst the most ‘digitally confident’ are also the least equipped to manage their financial lives. For example, Quadrangle’s data interrogation found surprising differences in levels of financial inclusion between the LGBTQ and heterosexual populations in the UK. 

This talk will share these new insights and consider how FS brands, who have a duty to be inclusive of all customers, can deal with the juxtaposition between digital confidence and real financial vulnerability.

Ben Skelton, CEO, Quadrangle

15.30-15.50 Afternoon refreshments

15.50 PANEL

A call to action: using research to move SMEs towards net zero

UK Finance’s, Unlocking the SME Net Zero Transition report is the culmination of a body of research that sought to explore SME attitudes towards, intentions and barriers to becoming net zero. A key objective of the research was to maximise its actionability by asserting research backed proposals for how policy makers and the financial services sector could support SMEs in their green transition with initiatives and products.

In this session panellists will discuss the challenges of moving SMEs towards net zero, how to make research more actionable and the rational for selecting specific research methods. They will also share key outcomes and plans on how to take key findings from this work forward.

Chaired by:
Lucy Watts, Managing Director ? Financial & Business, BVA BDRC

Panellists:
Jacqui Banerjee, Director, BVA BDRC
Ted Utoft, CEO, BVA Nudge Consulting
Jennifer Tankard, Principal, Commercial Finance, UK Finance
Mike Hudson, Chief Risk Officer, Cambridge & Counties Bank

16.20 Myth-busting and finding the holy grail: why sustainability and pensions matter

One of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced is also the key to unlocking one of our sector’s biggest barriers. Put simply, many pension customers have low engagement with their product and their provider. Pensions are for the future, not for now, they’re not so relevant to our world today. Or are they?

This case study examines how, The Phoenix Group, one of the UK’s largest pension providers, partnered with Boxclever to explore the nexus between sustainability and pensions, digging for engagement insight ‘gold’ where these two overlap.

Tom Dreaves, Research Director, Boxclever
Matt Coggan, Director, Boxclever
Craig Winton, Research Manager, Phoenix Group

16.50 Using generational triads to understand the role of family in influencing financial behaviours

Jigsaw is undertaking experimental research addressing two fundamental questions. How do family generations influence one another when it comes to finances and banking and how do banks market to and care for such a disparate generational range.

This session will share how an innovative approach - generational triads - is being trailed, to enable an exploration of the differences in attitudes and behaviours in a way that’s insightful (what’s the emotional wrap for the conversations? What’s the key advice they give each other? What provokes family discussion etc.) and engaging for clients and agencies.

Alex Johnston, Director, Jigsaw Research
Kat Bailey, Qualitative Specialist, Jigsaw Research

17.20 End of conference