Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, believes technological developments will play an increasingly significant role in getting Millennials and Generation Z savers to engage with their pensions and plan for retirement.
In its latest opinion paper, Digital Vision for Life and Pensions, Atos highlights how the industry’s future is being determined through new technologies including AI, cloud, intelligent automation, data analytics and machine learning.
The pace at which providers respond to this disruption will be significant in determining how attractive their offering is to savers and, consequently, their market share for years to come with the advent of the pensions dashboard a reflection of the digital change shaping the sector.
Ahead of the paper’s publication, Adrian Gregory, Atos Senior Executive Vice President and CEO, Atos UK & Ireland, said: “The choices people make about their pensions and life protection policies are among the most important financial decisions of their lives. As society changes, and people live and work in different ways, so too must the life and pensions sector change to provide more choice, information and flexibility for customers.
“By embracing change through tailored technologies providers can deliver sustainable services for millions of pension and investment plan-holders. This Digital Vision for Life and Pensions explores the key opportunities and challenges of transformation for life and pensions providers.”
The launch of the paper follows the commencement in spring this year of a 15-year agreement with Aegon to service and administer the company’s non-platform customers. Announced in November 2018, Atos will work with the Aegon team to deliver operational and end-to-end customer service excellence for its approximately 1.4 million customers.
The agreement is in addition to the service and administration by Atos of Aegon’s 500,000 protection customers and underlines the increasing footprint and ambition of Atos in providing business transformation expertise to the life and pensions market and the broader financial services sector.
Aegon is one of the world’s leading providers of life insurance, pensions and asset management. In an article for Digital Vision for Life and Pensions, Dougy Grant, Managing Director, Existing Business at Aegon UK, says the biggest challenge facing the industry is around trust and customer engagement:
“Many people find pensions confusing and daunting and so building their trust and connecting with them in more meaningful ways to help them become more engaged is an important step in them making informed decisions. While financial advisers do a very important job, online tools have a huge part to play in engaging with large numbers of customers.”
This is the latest paper in the Digital Vision programme which includes opinions and discussion around a variety of topics including Mobility, Energy and Utilities, AI, and Cyber Security.
Insurance Edge Comment:
Many under 35s have zero interest in pensions and see the UK government Stakeholder pension as little more than an extra tax, which is unlikely to pay anything extra on top of pension benefits after age 70. They may be correct. Many young voters also believe that Corbyn’s Labour government will bring in Universal Basic Income (UBI) for every citizen, say approximately £800pcm. Indeed UBI may well happen – irrespective of which shower of fiddlers and liars is in charge – as AI/automation decimates jobs over the next 30 years or so.
The fact is that work itself, especially relatively unskilled work, is an increasingly unattractive option compared to claiming benefits for most of your adult life in many developed economies. The brutal truth is that many people can obtain more money per month now, than they could realistically get from any pension scheme in 40 years time, when adjusted for inflation. Human nature often underpins the decision to take bread and jam today, rather than jam tomorrow.
For that reason alone, pensions are an exceptionally tough sales pitch, even via a charismatic unicorn cartoon app…
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