Donbavand revisits financial lifestages 10 years on

UK-- BDRC's Roger Donbavand is revisiting research he first conducted more than 10 years ago into how financial behaviour changes depending on lifestage.

The 2008 study is expected to paint a more complex picture of consumers today and show a wider variety of financial services needs unmet in the current market.

Donbavand, a BDRC director, said lifestages have fragmented considerably in the intervening years, moving ever further from the neat division of pre-family, family, and post-family/retirement.

Now banks and insurance companies must adapt their products and services to meet the needs of the growing number of people who never marry and choose to live alone, for example; or the ranks of “delayed empty-nesters” – parents whose grown-up children still live at home because they can't afford to move out.

Although Donbavand acknowledged the progress financial institutions have made in adapting their offers to appeal to a wider variety of consumer types, he said: “Still they are not recognising the extent to which [lifestages] are fragmenting.”

BDRC has put together a syndicate of six financial providers in support of the new Consumer Lifestage Financial Atlas, which was last produced in 2002 and debuted in 1997.

Trend data will be sourced from an analysis of Essex University's British Household Panel Survey, a longitudinal project running since 1991. This will be followed by a series of 20 focus groups and 30 depth interviews.

Author: Brian Tarran

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