DISCUSSING THE ROAD TO FUTURE PROSPERITY NOW
GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AVIVA
OUR business is about securing the long-term financial futures of our customers: providing prosperity and peace of mind. And our relationships with customers are enduring – potentially lasting 50 or 60 years through the savings and retirement phases of their lives.
As a leading insurer, with 53m customers, we’re at Davos to join in some of the biggest topics up for discussion: rebuilding trust in financial services and tackling the savings gap.
More than any other issue, the question of savings links the big macroeconomic and political debates of our time with the specific and everyday concerns of every individual. It links high politics with culture and psychology; local markets with global economic imbalances. It affects our livelihoods, our political debate and the development of society worldwide.
We need a change in attitude towards saving, and for it to be reconnected to the idea of prosperity, both for the individual saver and for those that use their capital to create wealth.
With that in mind, Aviva recently convened the Future Prosperity Panel – in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit – bringing together experts in behaviour change, economics and policy to look at ways of bringing about a step-change in attitudes towards savings. We’ll be publishing new thinking on the subject later this year.
The image of savings has not been helped by the turmoil that has sapped confidence in markets and financial services. Part of our discussions this week in Davos must focus on reintroducing the concept of prudent saving to customers who may have lost faith in that process.
The Future Prosperity panel is chaired by the Economist’s capital markets editor, Philip Coggan, and brings together nine leading thinkers. It will use insights from business, behavioural economics and public policy to consider new approaches to improve prosperity around the world.