To book for someone else click here.
£575 + VAT
£675 + VAT
1 CPS Voucher
Delivering good outcomes with 360 customer understanding
As a new government takes the reigns and the consumer duty takes full effect, we consider how the economy and new financial landscape will impact financial services providers and consumers.
Join MRS to explore the innovative insight methodologies that are being deployed by financial services brands to uncover holistic consumer understanding and deliver customer centric solutions.
Key contributions from:
HSBC * Santander * Western Union * Aegon * Tesco Bank * Alliance Trust * UK Finance * Cambridge & Countries Bank * Phoenix Group * Fair4AllFinance
FlexMR
Quadrangle
THINK BETTER. ACT DIFFERENT. Quadrangle’s story is unique; an independent management consultancy that reinvented itself to also offer market research – bridging the gap between brand, innovation and insight. We describe what we do as Customer Consultancy, helping brands build deep understanding, providing the underpinning for transformative ideas and strategies.Ronin
RONIN excels in acquiring participants for both qualitative and quantitative survey research, including business professionals, healthcare specialists, experts, and numerous hard-to-reach audiences. We utilise online, phone, and digital platforms to ensure your targeted participants are engaged, delivering verified and high-quality data. With approximately 400 multi-market projects annually and over 25 years of experience, RONIN specialises in market research. Introducing RONIN Edge, our innovative platform for engaging senior-level audiences. With offices in the UK, Germany, Hong Kong, and the US, we are eager to discuss your international research needs.Media Partner
Breaking market research news, latest job vacancies, industry reports, in-depth analysis and cutting-edge opinion for customer insight professionals.
Iain Aikman, Director, Strive Insight
Iain is a mixed-methods researcher with over 20 years of experience in the industry. His work has spanned various sectors, with a particular focus on brand and communications research.
In the financial services sector, Iain has worked on projects covering high street banks, business banking, credit card providers, and insurance providers. His experience covers areas such as brand tracking, communications testing and proposition testing.
Iain's approach centres on distilling research findings into a clear storyline with actionable insights to aid his clients’ decision-making.
Mark Atkinson, Senior Director, Client Management, Wealth & Retail, Alliance Trust
Kat Bailey, Qualitative Specialist, Jigsaw Research
Jacqui Banerjee, Director, BVA BDRC
Luke Cadman, Senior Partner, Flood and Partners
Luke is a Senior Partner at Flood, having helped set up the new agency back in 2018. He has two decades of global research experience with clients in almost every continent (still waiting on that brief from Antarctica). For someone that earns his living conducting online research, you might be surprised to hear that Luke doesn’t think much of (most) online surveys. Let’s be honest, the majority are mind-numbingly boring and respondents feel the same. So he’s made it his mission to transform surveys into something much more fun and engaging, where people actually pay attention and tell us something interesting. Thankfully, this crazy idea paid off and he now enjoys the challenge of delivering clearer, more meaningful insights for our clients.
Matt Coggan, Director, Boxclever
Matt leads the qualitative practice at Boxclever and remains a very hands-on researcher, passionate about discovering new & powerful insights, and dedicated to sharing these insights in a way that changes how we think, feel and act.
James Crouch, Head of Public Affairs, Opinium
Tamara Dewhirst, Head of Public affairs, Virgin Money
Joe Dharampal-Hornby, Head of Public Affairs and Communications, UKSIF
Tom Dreaves, Research Director, Boxclever
Tom has worked in research & insights for approaching 20 years, mostly on the agency side. He’s developed a huge passion for financial research, borne out of the challenge of understanding the often complicated and deep-rooted relationships people have with money. He loves helping his financial clients to answer business questions by leveraging the power of different quant & analytical approaches to uncover the interplay between attitudes, emotions and behaviours.
Adam Drummond, Head of Political Polling, Opinium
Lisa Edgar, Chief Executive Officer, the Big Window Consulting and Board Director, Merchants Trust
Michael Fisher, Head of Data, The Wisdom Council
Hadi Hedayati-Rad, Leader - Global Consumer Research & Insights, Western Union
Mike Hudson, Chief Risk Officer, Cambridge & Counties Bank
Paul Hudson, CEO, FlexMR
Alex Johnston, Director, Jigsaw Research
Diana Kamil-Salmon, Head of Engagement, Fair4All Finance
Anna Lane, CEO, The Wisdom Council
Dorothy Liviabella, Head of Vulnerable Customer Strategy, Santander UK
Dr Thomas Mathar, Insights Manager - Centre for Behavioural Research, Aegon
Sebastian Mitchinson, Group Insight Manager, HSBC
Nel Mooij, Head of Product - Home, Tesco Bank
Maxine Pritchard, Head of Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability, HSBC
Sophie Royds, Senior Research Executive, Strive Insight
Sophie has spent the past 5 years training and working as a mixed-method researcher in boutique research agencies, with exposure to a wide range of industries and disciplines.
Sophie has experience working in financial services for both high street banks/ money transfer providers, and emerging fin-techs. This work spans proposition testing, improving customer relationships, and brand comms testing.
Since joining Strive in 2023, Sophie has supported the dedicated behavioural science workstream, tasked with exploring behavioural science theories and tools to better understand and explain consumer data.
Ben Skelton, CEO, Quadrangle
Hello, I’m CEO of Quadrangle. I started at the brand, innovation and insight consultancy in 2003, following agency and client-side roles in planning, brand consultancy, PR, and market research. Despite my role, my primary love remains working on client business, so I continue to try to spend as much time as I can working with and advising clients and our client teams.
Brand and innovation consultancy Corporate Edge (2000-2003) gave me the opportunity to work closely with creatives and graphic designers; an experience which completely reframed my working philosophy.
From this, Dieter Rams ‘The power of good design’ thinking influenced me to create a parallel exploration into ‘The power of good research’, to showcase its ability to inspire decision makers to think differently and act better. A series of short videos unpacks the ten primary concepts in ‘The power of good research’, which is available on YouTube and Quadrangle’s LinkedIn page.
In brief, ‘The power of good research’ is not about methodology; it’s about the things that should happen in and around a project to deliver greater impact and value. I believe they’re worth watching – even the ‘obvious’ stuff is all-too-often forgotten about or deprioritised, and good research is more vital than that.
Joshua Sorene, Head of Brand & Reputation Insights, HSBC
Jennifer Tankard, Principal, Commercial Finance, UK Finance
Lucy Tarrant, Research Manager, Principality Building Society
Lucy Tarrant, Research Manager, Principality Building Society
Lucy leads the Research Team at Principality, the UK’s 6th largest building society. Lucy spent most of her career agency-side in Kantar’s Qualitative team, working for a diverse range of clients including Diageo, Reckitt, Nestle, Vodafone, GSK and Arla. From positioning dairy brands in the Middle East to developing telecoms innovation in India and understanding the approach to ageing from Japan to Brazil, Lucy thrived on understanding the nuances in beliefs and behaviours that enable brands to build meaningful connections in people’s lives.
Now closer to home in a client-side role for a regional brand, Lucy’s mission is to foster a genuine culture of ‘customer’ closeness. Working for a brand often viewed as traditional and with an ageing member base, Lucy looks for new ways to bring the voice of the current and future customer into the business and ensure that that voice helps shape decisions from the ground up.
Giuseppe Tonolini, Director, Strive Insight
Giuseppe Tonolini spent the first part of his professional career in marketing, covering brand management in companies such as Eastman Kodak and Carlsberg. Moved to market research in 1993, he was research manager for Whirlpool Europe.
In 1996 Giuseppe founded The Marketing Lab, a research agency based in Milan. In 2015, he co-founded Strive Insight, an insight agency based in London. Giuseppe has worked across various sectors including finance and fintech. He has also a 20 years experience researching the migrant target globally.
Giuseppe has the ability to integrate a mix of insight approaches, combining different methodologies and trying to overcome the traditional divisions inside the marketing research industry.
Ted Utoft, CEO, BVA Nudge Consulting
Lucy Watts, Managing Director ? Financial & Business, BVA BDRC
Anna Williams, Executive Director, Insight, Verve
Coming from a background of delivering strategic research programmes in global markets, I’ve spent the last 6 years as a senior qualitative specialist at Verve, using a variety of different qualitative methodologies to answer my clients’ most pressing questions.
I find it fascinating to explore how different people relate to personal finances, and in particular, the emotion behind difficult decisions in challenging economic times. I’ve been fortunate enough to explore this topic from a variety angles for the likes of Principality Building Society, Lloyds Bank, Simplyhealth and John Lewis Money – whether in relation to product design, portfolio development or comms planning.
As the research industry evolves to embrace the latest developments in AI, I’m excited to explore the opportunities it offers to enhance, energise and democratise insight for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Craig Winton, Research Manager, Phoenix Group
Alex Wright, Director of Client Partnerships, Kantar
Alex is the Client Partner for HSBC at Kantar and is responsible for pulling together Kantar's capabilities to help HSBC make better decisions and grow its brand. Alex loves connecting people to achieve great outcomes and is a big believer in the power of insights to drive change.
At Kantar, Alex has been involved in a wide range of Financial Services initiatives especially developing thought leadership around women and investing, sustainable transformation and brand value growth.
With over 20 years of research experience, Alex is a former MRS Council Member and has a degree in Economics and Management from the University of St. Andrews.
Will Wright, Client Services Director, Libertine
Will is Client Services Director at Libertine, where he has been since graduating, and actually a little before if you count work experience. He has wanted to work in advertising for as long as he can remember, following in the footsteps of his copywriter mother. That longevity is reflected in his beliefs in brands, that they are long term endeavours. In a world that is constantly changing and relentlessly busy he believes in making brands consistently stand out from the competition, to earn the attention they deserve. And it’s even more important to get Financial Services businesses that attention because they really matter and they’re not well enough understood and respected, so that is his mission. Unfortunately for his wife and daughter it means they are regularly badgered with educational “discussions” on the benefits of investing.
08.50 Registration & coffee
09.20 Opening comments from the Chair
Lauren Peel, Senior Partner, Inclusive Outcomes, The Big Window
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 UK
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
To book for someone else click here.
£575 + VAT
£675 + VAT
1 CPS Voucher
Our newsletters cover the latest MRS events, policy updates and research news.