Digital opens up financial wellbeing for everyone

How apps revolutionise financial wellbeing 

Most people run their lives using apps, with around 4 million of them available to download on Google Play and Apple App stores alone*. 

Using them has become second nature, especially those millennials and Gen Z’ers who’ve grown up in the age of digital innovation. Streaming movies and music, ordering food, booking travel, and health tracking are easier on an app, give a better user experience and are more secure than online, so it’s great to see that managing finances this way is really taking off.   

Apps build engagement 

Our Scottish Widows’ app has more than doubled user numbers over the past year, with more than 800,000 log-ins monthly by scheme members to see what they’ve got, consider whether it is enough, and manage their pensions.  

In early 2024, we added open finance technology into the app through our partnership with fintech Moneyhub. Using open finance data and the power of Lloyds Banking Group, the Scottish Widows app helps people build an understanding of their overall finances, now and in the future.  

Pension members can connect banking, mortgage, pension, savings and investment accounts from hundreds of providers, if they choose to – with no need to jump off onto another device, app or website. Building the app as a one-stop window into finances is why we didn’t rush into this. 

Filling the pension dashboard gap 

More than 20,000 people have connected £1bn+ of other assets to their Scottish Widows pension in the app. It’s an amazing number in a short space of time, and the biggest cohort is people connecting their other pensions so that they can see what they have elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, Aviva is the top pension connection but there are plenty of people connecting their Hargreaves Lansdown policies. 

Lloyds’ customers can already see their pension next to their bank account but it’s great to see so many digitally native Monzo customers connecting their bank account to their Scottish Widows pension.  

This helps them see their financial net worth across multiple accounts, in one place, which in turn can help them plan for a better financial future.  

What members are also doing is effectively building their very own pension dashboard as we wait for the government to launch the industry-wide one.  

Financial wellness is for everyone 

As Sam Seaton, CEO at Moneyhub, said to me when we first started working together: “Financial wellness starts as soon as people start earning money, no matter how young they are. It’s all about life planning, not just retirement planning. People are forever struggling to find the right balance of living for today whilst planning for tomorrow.  More commonly now, retirement isn’t always the hard stop it used to be either, with people enjoying part-time work, often in new areas.”  

I’d suggest open finance helps to fill the advice gap too, as people will be able to make better decisions. This links in well to Lloyds Banking Group’s purpose of Helping Britain Prosper. As part of that purpose, Scottish Widows is committed to helping to reduce the long-term savings and pension gap crisis.   

We’re determined to make our support for financial wellbeing a better, personalised digital experience, with more financial products available to meet people’s needs, helping them see their overall financial health as well as what their pension savings look like. And when they do that, we can nudge them to take action. 

* January 2024, App download data (2024) – Business of Apps