Pension funding problems. Can consumer loyalty programmes help? published 5th Feb 2020

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As some readers may be aware, The AirFund pension support scheme recently put out a survey looking at pension readiness and attitudes to cashback programmes, rewards and consumer loyalty. With over 1,000 respondents, the results show some interesting and also some concerning conclusions.

Why is this important?

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We are heading towards a pension crisis with an aging population with an increasing number unprepared for retirement and socioeconomic climate that is doing nothing to help.

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The wealth gap is getting larger between the haves and the have nots. With a growing number of people being reliant on the state in retirement and the proportion of those in retirement to those working growing, there will be less tax payers to fund the state pension requirements. A fiscal gap results.

Our findings, across all demographics suggest that 63% of respondents are unprepared for retirement. 88% of the 18-24 age group is understandable, but, 41% of the 45-54 age group being unprepared is worrying. 4% of the respondents aged 45-54 suggested they hadn’t even thought about it yet!

There is a correlation between unpreparedness and those not having enough income to add to a pension with 87% of those unprepared not having enough income.

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With this in mind, we are interested to find out peoples attitudes towards other ways of funding pensions with cashback and rewards that consumers can gain from the merchants they shop with being the route we wanted to investigate.

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While incremental rewards may not look much, when added together and invested over time with the compounding of investment returns, these small increments can make a difference. We found that 82% of respondents were interested in saving rewards gained in this way for the future and 86% of respondents potentially being interested in using merchants that would reward customer loyalty in this way. Not only that, 67% of respondents said they would consider moving their custom to merchants that could reward them in this way.

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Part of the ethos of The AirFund is to promote social responsibility, with members helping those less fortunate than themselves. We found that 83% of respondents felt that being socially responsible was important to them. When it came to giving up some of the rewards that they may gain to help others however, this figure reduced to 57%.

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Not withstanding that figure, 85% of respondents suggested they would be interested in a programme that rewarded loyalty with cashback, rewards and discounts invested for the future that also helped those less fortunate.

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Full survey results can be downloaded here

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The AirFund pension support scheme is close to launch and covers a lot of these aspects. If you are interested in finding out more or interested in helping us along the way in this innovative and socially responsible venture please don’t hesitate to contact us. chris@airfunders.com