Issues to do with personal finance and financial capability are key determinants of the resilience of society. At TNS BMRB we are experienced in conducting research across all the stakeholder groups involved in personal finance and pensions, whether pensioners, employers, tax payers, financial advisors, new parents or the financially excluded. Our policy expertise ranges from pensions provision to the funding of long-term care.
We regularly undertake:
- Feasibility studies;
- Marketing campaign evaluation; and
- Policy evaluation.
TNS BMRB is proud to conduct notable studies in this field including the Baseline survey of financial capability for the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Employers’ Pension Provision Survey for the DWP, the Financial Inclusions Survey for HMRC/HMT and the Practitioner Panel survey of firms regulated by the FSA.
Marrying quantitative and qualitative techniques for a deeper level of insight
Many of the projects we conduct use both quantitative and qualitative research methods to allow detailed statistical analysis coupled with the more in depth insight that can be added by a more qualitative approach.
In this field we use qualitative research extensively to help explore and understand complex financial issues. Our specialists use a wide variety of interviewing and analytical techniques to help people think through issues, drive the research forward and think creatively. For example:
- Time measurement techniques to help the Department for Work and Pensions to calculate the likely administrative costs of introducing a workplace pension
- Interactive workshops to help design an online savings and pension calculator
- In-depth interviews to understand people’s approach to saving for retirement
- Real-time web surfing to explore and understand how taxpayers negotiate HMRC’s self-assessment web pages
- Customer journey mapping techniques, exploring how people enter, and make a claim for, Housing Benefit, Jobseekers Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Tax Credits
- Document analysis, used to help refine the design of the self-assessment tax return and mortgage and investment disclosure documents;
- Process analysis, exploring customers’ first point of contact with HMRC and how they are then routed through the system in order for their query to be answered.