Bank of Ireland Seniors Wealth advisory proposition

Description

Bank of Ireland has designed, developed and delivered a new Seniors Wealth advisory proposition to address the gap in the provision of Wealth Advice and Financial Wellbeing support to the Seniors customer segment. The proposition is a market leading Financial Wellbeing initiative in Ireland. The ambition of the Seniors Wealth advisory proposition is to support Senior customers to achieve their later life goals: to enjoy the benefits of their wealth in the present; build their wealth to enable their future goals; and to share their wealth with those they love.
Background & Context
The world’s population is ageing at an accelerated pace. People are living longer. People over 65 years will increase by 60% in the next 10 years. For the first time ever, the number of people over 65 will soon outnumber the number of children aged less than 5 years of age.
C.40% of people aged over 60 choose Bank of Ireland as their banking partner. Up until recently there were very limited options available to Senior customers looking for Financial Wellbeing support and wealth advice, particularly when they reach 70 years and older.

At the heart of Bank of Ireland’s Financial Wellbeing strategy is our commitment to promote universal financial inclusion and foster a culture that supports the Financial Health of all of our customers.
Financial Wellbeing is the confidence to manage your money, to plan for your future and to be as prepared as possible for the unexpected.
Financial health and inclusion is one of the top three sustainability challenges identified by Bank of Ireland. There are four elements of Financial Health:
• Managing day-to-day finances to meet short term needs
• Capacity to absorb financial shocks (resilience)
• Capacity to reach future goals
• Feeling secure and in control of finances (confidence)

Customer research
Bank of Ireland carried out a survey with customers aged 70 to 85 to understand their challenges from a Financial Wellbeing perspective. The research established that, with the exception of high net worth clients, wealth advice and propositions are not offered to people over age 70. Seniors are excluded from many wealth, lending and protection products and fall out of regular proactive Financial Welling assessments. They need access to expertise and advice that will support them to take control of their retirement glide path.
The survey also indicated:
• Fear of Death/mortality and illness and not having enough funds in place to support them. They don’t want to burden their families in their later lives and supporting their loved ones financially is a key priority.
• The Deposit Government Scheme was important to them, particularly as they aged
• While many seniors are asset rich they don’t have access to advice on how to utilise those assets to support their later life needs.
• The current product suite (across all banks) funnels them into low return deposit products, while restricting access to solutions that meet longer term investment needs.
• There was appetite for alternative solutions that would help them to grow their assets in a low to medium risk categorisation
• Those without a private pension (c.60%) articulate that their home will fund their retirement without any true sense of how to make this a reality.
• That low returns on demand deposit is a deterrent to review their financial situation.
• They feel they have a lack of control of their own funds with no guidance or financial advice on their next steps while they see rapid reduction in their built up assets.
• Their preference is to hold more savings with one financial institution like Bank of Ireland, as they feel it is easier to manage their estate following death if there are less financial institutions involved
• Some are concerned about intergenerational wealth transfer and tax efficiency. They would like to discuss and sensibly decide how they can most optimally gift to the next generation.

Solution
Bank of Ireland has designed, developed and delivered a new Seniors Wealth advisory proposition to address the gap in the provision of wealth advice and financial support to the Seniors customer segment. The proposition is a market leading Financial Wellbeing initiative in Ireland. The ambition of the Seniors Wealth advisory proposition is to support Senior customers to achieve their later life goals: to enjoy the benefits of their wealth in the present; build their wealth to enable their future goals; and to share their wealth with those they love.
The key pillars of the Seniors Wealth proposition centre on giving Senior customers the confidence and capability to better understand their finances and to prepare, protect and support themselves through their pivotal later life moments. In addition the proposition provides customers with:

• A trusted Financial advisor offering holistic financial advice via omni-channels
• A bespoke Life plan to help them to make decisions about their finances
• Advice on Will planning, inheritance planning and putting in place “Powers of Attorney”
• A Strategy for the safe transition of the management of their finances should their faculties fail them

The model was established with additional governance and oversight rules that protect older customers. This includes a 2 meeting advice and sales process to ensure customers have sufficient time to consider the advice and recommendations being made to them.
The Seniors wealth proposition is a compelling example of a customer focused and innovative solution that addresses the gap that exists in the provision of Wealth Advice to Seniors customers.

Aim of Initiative

The ambition for the Seniors Wealth advisory proposition is to give Senior customers the confidence and capability to better understand their finances and to prepare, protect and support themselves and their families through their pivotal later life moments.
The model was established with additional governance and oversight rules that protect older customers. This includes a 2 meeting advice and sales process to ensure customers have sufficient time to consider their Life Plan and the advice and recommendations being made to them.

Who is it aimed at

The initiative is aimed at Senior customers in Bank of Ireland aged between 70 and 85

3 Steps critical to success

1. Our pre-existing BOI Financial Wellbeing programme provided the framework for the initiative with the proposition predominantly focused on improving the financial capability and confidence of our Seniors customer segment
2. Our customer research gave us the opportunity to properly understand how our senior customers were feeling, the issues that they were challenged with and the areas that were important to them.
3. Training and education across both the Wealth advisory team and also the BOI branch teams, raising awareness about the new proposition and providing adequate training to ensure the proposition and service was appropriately positioned with customers.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. 1. Risk management – ensuring adequate governance and controls were in place to protect our Seniors customers
2. 2. Developing appropriate products & solutions to meet customer needs and attitude to risk with sufficient controls to ensure customers were adequately protected
3. 3. The creation of a new Seniors investment policy and a comprehensive Seniors advice process which included a minimum 2 meetings to ensure customers had sufficient time to ‘digest’ the advice and recommendations being made by their Wealth advisor.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Improved Financial Wellbeing of customers through quality financial advice. This is reflected in an increase in the number of Senior customers that are taken through the comprehensive Life Planning process (4000+ customers to date). This includes the delivery of a personalised Life plan with bespoke recommendations that will support the customers Financial Wellbeing
2. Improved customer experience and advocacy, reflected in Net Promoter Score which is consistently > +96 and an increase in the number of family and friends that are referred by our Senior customers to Bank of Ireland. Customer verbatims include:
   o “Light bulb moment for us and something that we did not give much consideration to before this. I would highly recommend this to anyone my age. We got so much benefit out of the meeting”
   o “As their daughter, I really appreciated the detail and protection of my parents. Very thought provoking and enjoyed it and gave us the focus to do something different with our monies”
   o “The meeting clicked on something in my mind that I had forgotten about but it was extremely important and worthwhile and now I need to take action. Only for this service I wouldn’t be able to do this” .
   o “It was great to be able to talk to someone I was totally in the dark before meeting, I was told that I had no options but now to have this new service I am delighted”.
   o “I would highly recommend this to anyone my age. We got so much benefit out of meeting”
   o “The meeting and follow up journey was excellent and I think all people my age should do this journey”
   o “The meeting was insightful and the full process was seamless and hassle free” .
3. Increase in business written with this customer segment, supported by a robust risk framework that ensures any solutions recommended are suitable and adequately reflect the customers attitude to risk.