Joint Research Initiative with the OECD

Understanding the challenges of saving for retirement through our new research initiative

Sangita: Standard Life's aim is to build innovation and good practice. We want to make sure financial security in retirement is more achievable, more widespread and generally fairer.

The challenges we're trying to address are not common to the UK. They are faced by many people across the world.

Many providers have chosen to do it by themselves. We don't believe we can, which is why we wanted to collaborate with the OECD - an international organisation who works with many countries, and we want to tackle two specific challenges: retirement income and diversity, equity and inclusion.

It's why we've decided to announce a joint research initiative with them for the next three years.

Pablo: This is very important for us because as we have been talking and explaining in the OECD, it provides a forum for policymakers and regulators to exchange experiences and to share ideas.

And we, the OECD Secretariat gathered the different experiences from different stakeholders, not only regulators and supervisors, to develop policy guidelines.

And being able to do this Joint Research Initiative in two very specific projects that are part of our work. In particular they are part of our principles, and recommendation is essential in order to bring to the table, to regulators and policymakers, other experiences.

Sangita: Never have two organisations been better served.

The OECD's promise is to build better policies for better lives. And our promise at Standard Life is to help people secure a life of possibilities.

I'm really excited about what the collaboration can bring. I think by working together over the next three years using the people we know, the consultants, the clients and our customers and the research that we can bring and stakeholders to you, for you to be able to help us would be enormous. And hopefully we can make a difference to more people around the world.

Pablo: And that will be useful for us to bring to the table other views to provide us with a more comprehensive view of the issues and the challenges and how they are addressed by other stakeholders.

Thank you very much.

Sangita: Thank you.

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The goal of this initiative is to foster innovation in the way we meet the diverse needs and wants of savers. The OECD's combination of international reach and pensions expertise is unrivalled, and we're excited to embark on this project with them.

The three-year programme is funded by Standard Life and enables a team of OECD researchers, and policy experts, to explore two of the major challenges facing not just our customers but savers more generally in the UK and worldwide.

Retirement income

Many countries around Europe, South America and Australia are adopting different approaches to retirement income policy and promoting longer working lives.

The retirement income research that the OECD will conduct will examine the challenges in achieving financial security in retirement. The OECD will investigate what innovation is going on around the world to help improve certainty of income and reduce the possibility of running out of money with consideration to the varying and changing needs that people have in retirement. It will assess for example the role of housing as an asset within solution design and different forms of pooling structures for example Collective Defined Contribution (CDC).

Diversity, equity and inclusion

The diversity, equity and inclusion research that the OECD will progress begins initially with the data from the consumer attitudes survey ‘Bringing retirement into focus: 2021’ where we surveyed nearly 5,000 people across five generations. We found some interesting themes, but we wanted to validate these against other research that exists. The OECD will use data and insights to deepen the focus on specific individual characteristics that may influence their attitudes, decisions and feelings about retirement saving namely gender, culture and ethnicity, and socio-economic background.

The challenges that we are discussing are not new. They are faced by many savers across the world. Many providers have tried to solve this alone. We don’t believe we can. Which is why we wanted to collaborate with an international organisation and bring a global lens to the challenges we are trying to address.

The OECD’s success is down to their ability to bring stakeholders together, to get a better understanding of the issues and challenges, and as a result, help to suggest better ways of addressing them.

By working together, Standard Life and the OECD feel confident that the research will help to improve solutions and support those saving for and in retirement, not just in the UK but worldwide.

Sangita Chawla, Chief Marketing Officer, has been instrumental in establishing this initiative and will lead the project from a Standard Life perspective, with Dr Pablo Antolin, Head of the Private Pensions Unit, leading from the OECD supported by policy analysts Jessica Mosher and Stéphanie Payet.