Insights + interviews
HSBC: The Future Of Retirement
HSBC’s latest global report, Generations and journeys unveils some interesting insights about the future of retirement in Singapore.
As part of their The Future of Retirement series, HSBC’s 13th global report, Generations and journeys shares some insights about ensuring financial security even during retirement. The research study represents the views of over 18,000 people in 17 countries and territories.
Some of the key highlights are as follows:
Priorities in life
- Across generations, family security (63 percent) and financial security (67 percent) remain the top two things people value most in life
- While having good health (68 percent) and enough money for a comfortable life (52 percent) ranked highly across the generations, they tend to be more important in life for those in their 50s and 60s
Finances in retirement
- People in their 30s (69 percent) and 40s (78 percent) are most likely to be financially supporting others and more likely to be borrowing (62 percent and 59 percent respectively)
- Pre-retirees expect less financial outgoings such as household bills (48 percent) and credit card repayments (12 percent) than current retirees have (60 percent and 22 percent respectively)
Funding retirement
- Nearly three in five (59 percent) retirees use cash savings/deposit accounts to help fund their retirement
- Financial support from children (34 percent) as well as life insurance/endowment savings (34 percent) are a popular funding method of by retirees
- Conversely, pre-retirees expect to use their own income (40 percent) to fund their retirement instead of relying on their children for financial support (15 percent)
- More pre-retirees expect to use property (21 percent) to help them fund their retirement than current retirees do
- 57 percent of those in their 50s plan to move to a smaller home in the future compared to those in their 60s (52 percent)
Saving for retirement
- 23 percent of pre-retirees have not started saving for their retirement
- Women (26 percent) are less likely to have started saving compared to men (20 percent)
- While 73 percent of pre-retirees have started saving for retirement, 38 percent have stopped or faced difficulties
- Looking back, two in five retirees (40 percent) and pre-retirees (41 percent) wish they had started saving for retirement at an earlier age
Retirement saving gap
- Pre-retirees expect to save for retirement 9 years longer (29 years) than current retirees did (20 years)
- Average age retirees started saving was 39 where they stopped working at 59
- Pre-retirees who have started working begin saving at 32 years old and expect to work until they are 61 years old
Receiving information or advice about retirement
- Over a quarter (26 percent) of working age people have never received advice or information about retirement
- Pre-retirees in their 50s (30 percent) are most likely to have received no advice or information about retirement
- Friends and family are the most common sources of retirement advice or information with nearly half (49 percent) of pre-retirees and 56 percent of retirees having received advice/information from them
- Over two in five (41 percent) retirees and around a third (32 percent) of pre-retirees have received advice/information from professionals
Reproduced with permission from The Future of Retirement Generations and journeys, published in 2016 by HSBC Holdings plc.