Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing (CPFW)

Established in 2021, the Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing is an interdisciplinary research centre that seeks to get the heart of the causes and consequences of personal and household financial insecurity. It focuses on providing accessible and timely insights to support a wide range of leaders and decision makers including those in, the financial service industry, third sector organisations, academics as well as the general public.

Centre’s research is focussed around three key themes:

Establishing effective ‘everyday’ personal finance wellbeing approaches

Managing personal finance is a feature of everyone’s lives. Doing it well is key to living life to the full. Under this theme we undertake work that explores how to achieve effective personal financial wellbeing for different parts of society including exploring how best to support people to live on lower incomes, how to ‘decumulate’ wealth well into later life, understanding how people make decisions about where to live and how to pay for this choice, the impact of being a migrant managing money, and decisions such as whether to decide to be an employee or work for yourself.

Current Projects

• Effects of SEISS payment on entrepreneurship and risk taking after the COVID pandemic
   
• Energy literacy in the UK
   
• Gender and Financial Wellbeing
   
• Real Accounts

Completed Projects

• Migrants and non-citizens
   
• Money and mental health
   
• Child trust fund

Creating financial resilience

This theme of our work seeks to improve our understanding of how to balance spending and savings, over the short and longer terms, and how to facilitate the developing of a ‘nation of savers’. This theme focuses on both common and alternative approaches to developing and maintaining saving strategies, savings support for those on lower incomes and in precarious work, those affected by migration and displacement, and the role of the insurance industry in developing financial resilience.

Current Projects

• Wicked challenges in personal finance - developing effective regional poverty alleviation strategies
   
• 0% VAT rate - exploring who really benefits

Completed Projects

• Taxation and social policy
   
• Harmful gambling and tenancy loss
   
• Quality vs quantity of social housing

Principles of Personal Financial Wellbeing

Our research in this area look at personal financial wellbeing from a macro perspective and apply academic expertise to aid the development of effective financial education to improve decision making skills related to money. This will include research and improved financial education across all age groups.

Current Projects

• Development of financial education in South Africa

Completed Projects

• Financial wellbeing and local area deprivation