Expert view: MaPS’ Oliver Morley on the need for structure to boost employees’ financial wellbeing

Writing in REBA's Financial Wellbeing Research 2024, Oliver Morley, chief executive officer at the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), details how digital financial wellbeing tools are supporting employees.

At MaPS, we take an evidence-based approach to understanding what works in building financial wellbeing. We encourage employers to do the same.

We have noticed that employers are increasingly outsourcing provision of financial literacy for their workforce to third-party app or platform-based providers.

These offer in one place financial literacy for money, debt or pensions decisions and, depending on each provider’s business model, a range of regulated/unregulated financial products.

Evidence is beginning to show (although more research is needed) that people are responsive to using personalised financial wellbeing apps that include a mix of financial products and financial literacy alongside an interactive visualisation of their real-time salary or pension income.

Lastly, AI-generated financial coaching is a growing offer from workplace fintech providers. This has the potential to transform just-in-time financial literacy for employees but must be developed with care to ensure that the in-app financial guidance generated is trustworthy and accurate.

We are collaborating with providers through their apps and platforms, to see where we can embed MoneyHelper guidance and tools.

Having co-funded groundbreaking research into workplace autosave as part of the Nation of Savers pillar of the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing that MaPS has a statutory role in coordinating, we are now engaging policymakers and regulators to see how we can expand such schemes at scale through the workplace to help people build their financial resilience.

We are likely to see many more employers taking a structured approach to understanding and meeting the financial literacy needs of their workforce. This is a good thing.