A new report has analysed how aware different genders are of pension matters, with females obtaining the worst results.
The report ‘Pensions: The Root Problem’, published by Friends Life’s latest ‘Visions of Britain 2020’, found that women are less likely than men to understand the issues related to their pension and to prepare adequately.
Specifically, the study asked Brits how much their pension is currently worth, how much income they will have in retirement and whether they will be able to retire early.
It was revealed that UK women face a “rougher ride” than men over retirement due to pension ignorance.
“Women are taking greater control of their money but still appear to be disengaged with pensions, whether due to career breaks, lack of flexibility in their working arrangements or simply because they find them confusing,” said Martin Palmer, Head of Corporate Benefits Marketing at Friends Life.
While women are shown to be better with issues of family budgeting, increasing their knowledge about pensions and understanding the issue sufficiently still seems to be beyond them.
The research revealed that 59% of women were not saving for a pension, while this is the case for only 52% of men.
On top of this, just a half of women demonstrated that they knew how much their pensions were worth, yet up to 65% of men were able to do so accurately. Additionally, while 68% of males claimed to know what their retirement income would be, only 49% of their female counterparts did.
“It is vitally important that savers, and especially women, focus on the long term to make adequate preparations for their retirement,” added Palmer.
A lack of retirement and pension planning can lead to financial problems later in life. In fact, a recent study showed that same day decision loans are the second most common method of borrowing this year among Brits aged over 55. Many households are inclreasingly turning to bad credit loans companies not brokers.
#TITLE#UK consumers encouraged to look for lenders that quotation search#/TITLE#
When it comes to applying for loans or credit cards in the modern day, the your credit score is central to whether or not you will be accepted by a credit provider. Look for more loans without upfront fees and quick decision loans.
Only customers with the highest score, and therefore the cleanest credit, will qualify for credit cards with the most attractive balance transfer deals or loans with the lowest interest rates in the UK.
Credit scoring is used to represent the “creditworthiness” of a person. By using a numerical expression based on a statistical analysis of a person’s credit records, a credit score is mostly based on credit report information usually sourced from credit bureaus.
This information is largely used to determine if a candidate was suitable for a credit provider.
The key issue for consumers is that when you apply, most lenders will undertake a full credit search which leaves a search ‘footprint’ on your file. If you apply to multiple lenders in a short space of time, this leaves lots of search footprints which will degrade your credit score because this is seen as an indicator that your circumstances might have changed.
Lots of these ‘hard’ search footprints will reduce your chances of being accepted by the lenders offering the better interest rates on loans or credit cards and this could affect your financial future.
With the new quotation search system, something recently adopted by lenders like Everyday Loans, searches no longer leave a ‘hard’ footprint and are therefore no longer a concern for those customers applying to them. A potential lender can make a swift decision on your suitability and come back to you with an offer that has no impact on your credit status.
The difference is that the process will have been recorded as a ‘quotation search’ rather than a ‘full search’ or ‘hard search’. Once the quotation search is done, this can only be seen by the customer on their credit record and no-one else. No other lenders or credit providers will see that the quotation search has taken place, not even the credit provider that has undertaken the search will be able to see it on the customers record.
At a time when a record number of Brits are expected to apply for personal loans in order to pay for Christmas, this system could prove invaluable for British consumers.
It serves to provide you with the answer you need for a loan application without any of the baggage which usually accompanies such a process as standard.