Helping people make better financial decisions: The role of online personal finance learning Professor Sharon Collard The True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance SUI Credit Union workshop: Delivering on Membership Value University of Strathclyde, 26 June

My agenda Personal Finance Modules Managing My Money Managing My Investments Q&A 2

Personal finance modules Three online modules for adults, free of charge – Managing My Money (2014) – Managing My Investments (2015) – Consumer rights and responsibilities (2016) 3

Personal finance modules Available on two platforms: – FutureLearn: Massive Open Online Course, facilitated by OU educators – The Open University’s OpenLearn: permanent resource, not facilitated 4

Personal Finance Modules Managing My Money (MMM) Managing My Investments Q&A 5

Purpose of MMM Improve personal finance knowledge and understanding – Financial planning, household balance sheet, spending and borrowing, mortgages, pensions and savings, insurance Understand social and behavioural drivers of financial decisions (e.g. ‘bad financial habits’) Establish systematic ways to manage individual financial decisions and aggregate household finances 6

Key Features of MMM Covers spectrum of personal finance subjects 24 hours of study over 8 weeks Divided into digestible ‘steps’ Targeted at people aged 16+ Text, AV assets, quizzes, discussions, self- assessment tests 7

Managing My Money: FutureLearn

MMM in numbers 9 1 st FL presentation 2 nd FL presentation Total Registered15,39019,46534,855 Active Learners10,00011,07121,071 Comments posted24,79429,79254,586 Steps visited493,144435,613928,757

Getting people interested PR campaign in run-up to MMM1, May 2014 – Featured on 166 radio stations, 26 press/online pieces, 23 broadcast interviews How found out about the course? – FutureLearn website (43%), 21% read about it online, 15% read about it in print media Personal interest (98%), free course (49%) 10

Who signed up? More women (64%) than men (35%) Aged 46+ (53%), only 9% under 25 Lived in UK (78%) Educated to degree level or above (61%) In work (67%) or retired (16%) Familiar with online learning (55%) 11

Learners’ views about MMM Overall experience excellent (53%) or good (39%) Time required ‘about right’ (89%) Course structure very (80%) or fairly (18%) clear Activities interesting (73%), helpful (72%), thought-provoking (49%), challenging (28%) 12

Pensions are the ‘big worry’ How does the new pension regime work? How do I take advantage of new pension freedoms? How do I transfer to another pension scheme and what are the costs? How do I evaluate different pension products? How do I check that my pension plans are on track for the outcome I want? 13

Impact of MMM? Know a lot (47%) or a little (47%) more about the subject now Activities ‘changed my view’ (17%) Qualitative feedback from comments posted on the steps 14

De-mystifying financial matters Take steps towards managing a vastly reduced income Signed up for online banking Created financial spreadsheet and budget Made changes that will save me money

Take-aways Strong uptake and lots of interaction – Some people do want to talk about personal finance Can we engage younger people, people on lower incomes, and those less well educated? What more can we do to measure impact? – ‘Design-in’ to courses, follow-up surveys 16

About True Potential PUFin Personal Finance Modules Managing My Money Managing My Investments Q&A 17

Managing My Investments On FutureLearn from 11 May 2015 Six week course covers: – Different investment choices, returns and risks, historical performance – Investment strategies and the practicalities of investing – Behavioural traits and their impact on effective investment decision making 18

Personal Finance Modules Managing My Money Managing My Investments Q&A 20

Find out more Managing My Money Managing My Money Q&A Socials – videos from Managing My Money 2 nd FL presentation Managing My Investments True Potential PUFin OU personal finance 21

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