This article is written in collaboration with DBS, a TDI Corporate Member.
DBS Hong Kong has launched a programme that aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) and behavioural science to ‘nudge’ customers into taking a more critical look at their retirement needs.
Face Your Future is an innovative initiative to help customers better understand their retirement needs and plan for their ‘golden years’.
People are living longer, and should therefore expect to have not only a longer life, but retirement. Longevity brings many blessings, but for many, the latter years are spent in failing health with long term chronic health conditions.
The time after work seems like a very long way off, and there are always other more pressing matters to focus on – career, children, marriage, or just having fun. As a result, consumers often fail to give their retirement planning serious thought until it is almost too late to do anything about it.
Like any other adventure or journey, retirement needs to be saved for. By starting early, consumers can better spread the cost over time and smooth out volatility by taking advantage of a long-term investment strategy. By leaving things to the last minute, they will have to make huge contributions, limit their expectations or simply do without.
DBS’s Face Your Future is designed to help consumers better visualise their retirement and nudge them into starting to make concrete decisions about their future.
The programme takes a photo and uses facial recognition software to estimate the user’s age. Once the user confirms their age and sex, the software creates a visualisation of what they may look like in their golden years. Or at least, the the age they have decided to retire.
It then asks a few generic questions about the lifestyle and health plan the individual would expect to enjoy during their retirement, and presents them what that might cost – compared to today. The estimate is based on average earnings and healthcare costs data.
Finally, Face Your Future asks if the user is already well provided for, or has yet to make a start on saving for their retirement. The user can then choose from a range of different DBS tools and services to conduct further research or to take some advice.
By offering an AI-aged image, Face Your Future places the user into a future context they may not have given much thought to otherwise. This allows them to consider what their future needs might be, raises awareness of the importance of retirement planning and encourages them to take the next step to doing something positive to achieve those goals.
“Planning for the future, especially retirement is never easy, and is even more challenging now given the current uncertainties surrounding the pandemic,” says Richard Vargo, Managing Director and Group Head of Regional Bancassurance, at DBS Bank. “To add, retirement planning often encroaches an emotionally uncomfortable territory which can be hard to think about. With Face Your Future, we aim to have users come away with a better understanding of their retirement needs in a fun and innovative way, kickstart their thinking, and look forward to their future with confidence and peace of mind.”
The software is optimised for smartphones or tablets and may be trialled at https://go.dbs.com/hk-fyf.
For more, see the infographic below, which outlines the three simple steps needed to get your future estimated retirement costs calculated at the click of a finger!