Financial planning
The complexity and range of financial products available in today’s market is sometimes overwhelming for consumers. We aim to provide customers with independent tools and information that will enable them to make sound financial choices. We have partnered with the Life Academy to offer all our customers an educational website, e//learn, that offers a financial education programme, including:
- Money Basics – Understanding the basic principles of money and how it works
- Saving and Investment – Exploring the different options available when saving money
- Pension – Highlighting the importance of long term savings for retirement
- Tax – Understanding how tax affects individuals
- Protection – Identifying the need for protection and understanding the different types available
- Borrowing – Discovering purposes and methods of borrowing
The Life Academy also supported our latest financial planning tool for customers, e//tutor, an easy-to-use online interactive educational tool, aimed at providing customers with information to help them make the most of saving for retirement. The tool covers such topics as the value of pensions, how much to contribute and where to invest.
Previously known as the Pre-Retirement Association, the Life Academy (external link, opens in new window) has 40 years of experience of providing guidance to individuals preparing for retirement. Their mission is to help adults manage changes in mid and later life, with learning programmes designed to enable people to plan for the future.
Further support for group pensions scheme members
As members of our group pensions schemes are amongst our customers least likely to receive financial advice, we offer retirement planning workshops. The aim of these courses is to consider the changes that take place at this key life stage, and how they can be managed in a positive way. The objective is to understand the transition process in a holistic way, and take stock of important areas such as finance, health, work, leisure, relationships, and self-identity.
We offer further online tools to improve group pension scheme members’ engagement with their retirement provision:
- FRIENDS membersite: a secure website for members of group pension schemes where users can view their pension details such as current funds, values and personal details
- FRIENDS e//tools: two online tools, e//funds and e//forecaster, that can help group pension members with their pension planning and decision making
Making the most of your money
The FSA’s ‘making the most of your money’ initiative provides financial education and information direct to employees in their place of work through seminars and supporting resources. The seminars tackle subjects such as budgeting, borrowing, insurance, savings and investments. Friends Provident is supporting this initiative by providing members of our accredited team to deliver the seminars, which can provide benefits for the employees and employers alike.
Education for employees
Friends Provident also aims to equip all its employees with the skills and knowledge necessary to understand their own financial circumstances. We offer a wide range of support services available to employees including:
- financial advice at much reduced rates of commission
- confidential support from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, a charity dedicated to offering free counselling and money management assistance to financially distressed families and individuals
- pre-retirement planning workshops
Employees are also able to use the online financial educational programme developed in partnership with the Life Academy.
Related links
We also provide support for our clients by providing useful financial calculators and consumer tools from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) on our customer website.
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