Past events
Nest Insight 2025: What will it take to build financial resilience for everyone?
Date: Tuesday 1 July
Location: Asia House
Registration now closed.
Our annual conferences bring together academics, industry, policymakers and other experts working towards improving people’s long-term financial security. These interactive convenings aim to promote a better understanding of the needs of low-moderate-income households; while also sparking debate and fresh conversations to encourage join up across the system so that it better supports people throughout their lives.
In this, our ninth annual conference, we heard all about the latest findings from our research programmes, including a blueprint to real world solutions we’ve been testing. And made the case for action that demonstrates the multitude benefits across various policy interests.
The morning panel explored the business and economic case for supporting worker financial wellbeing. Joanna Legg from the Financial Conduct Authority set out the scale of the challenge, sharing data on the millions of UK adults facing serious financial difficulty. Nida Broughton from the Behavioural Insights Team reflected on how financial strain affects staff performance and inclusion. Rob Lovesey, I-CUDE from Serve and Protect Credit Union shared how frontline workers felt a stronger sense of belonging when saving regularly. And Vivien Burrows of Nest Insight spoke about the link between financial resilience and better relationships, improved wellbeing, and increased participation in financial systems.
Our keynote speaker, Helen Undy from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, highlighted the two-way link between poor mental health and low financial resilience. She shared research showing that people with mental health problems who take extended sick leave see household income fall by 50 percent, with more than half falling behind on essentials like rent, bills, food and fuel. She asked what it would mean for people and for the economy if we could break that link.
Watch the sessions from the day:
In the afternoon, we turned to bold, practical approaches to building resilience. Kate Pender from Fair4All Finance argued that current efforts only address half the problem, and that we also need to tackle spending behaviours. Alex Christopoulos from the Aviva Foundation introduced Variable Recurring Payments as a way to help people repay what they can, when they can, giving borrowers greater control while reducing arrears. Simon Bocca from PayCaptain made the case for rethinking payroll systems built on outdated assumptions. Nest Insight’s Sope Otulana and Jo Phillips shared insights on hybrid solutions that combine long-term and short-term needs, such as pension saving linked with emergency funds.
We’ll be sharing highlights and learnings from the day over the coming weeks. If you’d like to register your interest in attending our next annual conference, sign up here.
Simplifying retirement savings for self-employed people
At the launch of new research from Nest Insight’s self-employed savings programme, we heard from supportive voices including the Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell MP, shared our latest findings and explored next steps and policy considerations.
Date and time: Monday 16 June | 10-11.30am (BST)
Location: Online – Microsoft Teams
Registration now closed.
Watch the sessions from the day.
With funding from DWP, Nest Insight has been developing evidence about the potential effectiveness of ‘autosave’ solutions that can help self-employed people build up both short-and long-term savings without needing to actively sign up to a savings product.
Building on the work from previous phases of the research, we know that self-employed people would value support in saving for retirement but that they are also unlikely to participate in these solutions unless the sign-up process is automated.
The latest phase of the research suggests that, if designed well, automated retirement saving mechanisms could have potential to support self-employed people to save for retirement without reducing their autonomy to choose how they use their money. As part of this phase of research we have:
- consulted with industry and policy stakeholders about how autosave solutions could work in practice
- conducted in-depth interviews with self-employed people about the autosave approach
- run randomised online research with ~1,500 self-employed people to explore whether an opt-out mechanism (both with and without additional liquidity) could boost retirement saving participation among the self-employed; and,
- collaborated with Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) to design and explore the reception of self-employed people to simulated autosave solutions in the context of LBG’s apps, products and services. Also, to explore the thoughts and response of the banking provider of doing so.
Retirement-linked Emergency Savings: Lessons from the US
In this online discussion with friends from across the pond we explored the journey to the implementation of the SECURE 2.0 Act, its impact so far and what the UK can learn from their example. This live and interactive webinar took place on Monday 28 April.
Since the beginning of our work on short-term savings, Nest Insight has been looking across the pond to the US, where forward-thinking organisations have also been working to increase the financial security of low- and moderate-income households.
In 2022 US Congress passed legislation building emergency savings provisions into the retirement system. The SECURE 2.0 Act established the concept of a Pension-Linked Emergency Savings Account with an indexed value of up to $2,500 and separately enabled $1,000 penalty-free access to pension savings in case of a financial emergency. The landscape of both in-pension and out-of-pension workplace emergency savings solutions has been evolving in recent years with innovation from both providers and employers.
In this online event we heard from experts from the US system about the legislation, how it is playing out in practice and to drew out potential lessons for the UK’s financial resilience agenda.
Speakers
- Tim Flacke, Commonwealth
- Kendra Isaacson, Mindset
- Will Sandbrook, Nest Insight
- Moderator: Jo Phillips, Nest Insight
Alongside the event we published a case study of the United States’ SECURE 2.0 Act.
Visit our YouTube Channel to watch all of our event recordings.
Building a nation of savers via the workplace
Nest Insight conference 2024
Our eighth annual conference, we brought together thinktanks, academics, policy makers, employers, and others, to hear about all the latest findings from our research programmes, practical trials and beyond, and got a full picture of everything we’re hearing from the people and households seeking stability within a system that doesn’t always fit them. Together, we explored future directions.