Financial Mobility Limited personal finances, and a poor understanding of money management, can be detrimental to social mobility. Becoming financially resilient better enables individuals to approach their career with a long-term perspective; and keep progress on track without the distraction debt or falling behind on payments. Funding and completing training and educational courses may also require financial savviness and access to savings. To help address this, True Potential launched a series of free money management courses in partnership with the Open University in 2013. This is part of the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (True Potential PUFin), a centre of excellence for research in the development of personal financial capabilities. It works to improve the public understanding of personal finance through its research and the delivery of free modules providing individuals with the tools to make sound financial decisions. More than 500,000 people across the UK have taken part in the courses and in doing so have improved their own financial resilience. True Potential’s impulseSave app, which enables users to save as little as £1, also encourages people to become more financially stable by building up funds for the future. With household finances likely to suffer in the coming months amid further redundancies and the winding down of the furlough scheme, financial education and guidance will be crucial.
15.9% 22 Opportunity Action Plan
True Potential’s Savings Gap survey – which tracks quarterly savings and debt – has long showed the influence of debt in thwarting regular saving activity. But another enemy of personal financial stability is currently going unchecked. High and unnecessary recurring fees, taken from savings and investment pots, can significantly offset growth in personal finances. At a time when people need as much financial advice as possible, many are being discouraged from seeking it because of this outmoded drain on funds, or worse still, unaware of the long term effects on their wealth. Many savers are paying recurring fees for advice that was delivered years ago, at a cost based on the size of their assets, not the work involved in the advice itself. True Potential believes a simpler and fairer solution would be to pay for advice upfront or - if the individual wanted to - spread the cost via a direct debit over several years. With technology allowing savers to transparently track the performance of their investments and replacing costly manual visits from advisers, he ongoing advice fee is increasingly in need of a rethink. As part of its campaign greater financial inclusion and resilience, True Potential is urging the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to look into this matter to protect savers and, in doing so, contribute to making Britain a more financially mobile nation.
Forecasting group the EY ITEM Club predicts that demand for consumer credit will fall 15.9 per cent in 2020.
