Article by Christina
Female Pension advisors trusted more than TikTok
At last, some good news for pensions advisors.
According to research by Aqua, female pension advisors were trusted by 35% of people as the best people to provide financial advice and personal recommendations. I should hope so!
Pension advisors were the most trusted followed by:
- Friends and Family – 30%, or personal networks.
- TV – 29%
- You Tube – 9%
- Other social media – 8%
In terms of the social media outlets, trust was pretty low. According to the research:
- Only 26% trust You Tube when it comes to financial advice.
- Only 17% trust Instagram
- Only 16% trust X
- 15% trust Facebook and only
- 15% trust Tik Tok
This makes us feel better than previous surveys which have seemed to suggest that social media was becoming increasingly influential. Whilst it still is for younger people, we know from other surveys that when it comes to retirement planning this is less likely to be the case.
In a survey by Finimaze, they found that 80% of people wanted access to direct advice from financial services firms. With 20% saying that they felt firms should provide more financial education as part of their services.
Pension planning not the priority for young people
According to a survey last November by SJP, young people are less likely to want to talk to pension advisors. Their main priorities were:
- Better budgeting advice
- Managing debt
- Protection
- Savings advice
- Investment advice
In the survey of 18- to 35-year-olds, less than 20% thought that they would benefit from financial advice in the future. Although most thought that their finances were too straight forward to require advice, or that it was too soon to think about it.
Against this, 50% of female pension advisors say that they would like to see autoenrollment pension contributions increased, along with a reduction in the starting age and a reduction in the minimum salary. A very different set of priorities.
And also, for many over 55’s
According to Standard Life a quarter of over 55’s have never checked their pension. That’s in comparison to only 6% of 18- to 35-year-olds, despite them having different priorities.
But why have they not checked their pensions.
- 23% said it was because they didn’t think they needed to.
- 17% hadn’t even thought about it.
- 12% didn’t know how to check.
- 12% said that even if they checked they wouldn’t understand it.
Standard Life recommends that you should check your pension at least once a year. If you are worried about it, or don’t understand it you should consider talking to a pension advisor. Or one of our female pension advisors if you prefer.
On the plus side, over 50% of people said that they had checked on their pension in the last 12 months.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) not welcome by many.
There is also a gap starting to emerge between age groups overs the use of AI in financial services, as you might expect. Almost 55% of people questioned by Exclaimer said that they were annoyed by communications coming from AI sources. 40% of people think that AI reflects a lack of personal engagement and that it reduces brand value and loyalty. Almost 90% said that they would ignore any AI generated marketing e mails.
Older people feel more strongly than under 35’s about the use of AI.
You’ll be pleased to hear that here at Christina Clegg Financial Planning Services we do not use AI.
Neither do we intend to start using it. A personal face to face or over the telephone service is at the heart of our service and that’s not about to change any time soon. That’s one of the benefits of using a local female pension advisor and a smaller independent advice firm.
