ABOUT THE RESEARCH

This article is based on a survey of 800 Singapore residents conducted in June-July 2022. The respondents fall into four age cohorts: 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 and 55-65. The sample is split evenly between males and females and distributed among different income groups ranging from S$0-25,000 to S$200,000 and over.

The trend is unmistakable: Singaporeans are growing increasingly confident about their ability to live to 100. This is all the more remarkable in the aftermath of a devastating health crisis and amidst strong global economic headwinds.

Citizens’ upbeat views about their prospects for ageing could be influenced in part by their country’s demonstrated public health and economic resilience. However, the role of digital technology in helping people to monitor and improve their personal health and finances should not be underestimated.

Already among the most avid adopters of smartphones in the world, Singaporeans ascribe considerable importance to the use of personal health and finance technologies—such as wearable fitness devices and banking apps—in their efforts to support a long life span. Over half (54%) of respondents say that mobile devices and apps are the most important tools they have to help them live well for longer and get the most out of life.

And defying conventional age-related assumptions about technology use, the oldest cohort of working-age citizens value digital technologies for these purposes—namely, managing their personal health and their finances—almost as much as the youngest.

In previous reports exploring Singaporeans’ readiness to live to 100, we focussed on their efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle and build financial resilience. In this article, we assess how Singaporeans are using digital technology to further those efforts.

Building a nest egg the digital way

In each survey we have conducted in our Ready for 100 series, we’ve asked Singaporeans if they feel ready to live to 100 from a financial perspective. Their response in this latest survey is decidedly upbeat, with 54% saying they expect to be able to fund such longevity. This is substantially higher than the 29% positive response registered the previous year.

This improvement in outlook could be due at least partly to Singapore’s strong economic performance in 2021 and 2022, and its success in containing new covid outbreaks in the past year. Kevin Lam, head, UOB TMRW and group digital banking, also attributes the respondents’ relatively positive outlook to a high level of financial literacy among citizens and to the success of many people in strengthening their financial positions during the covid-19 crisis.

We have previously documented the strong preferences of Singaporeans for using digital means to manage their personal finances, such as monitoring bank balances and managing their investments. This was the case even before covid-19. Although bank branches are open again and face-to-face meetings with financial advisors are possible, the preference for digital will remain strong, according to Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore. “People are much more knowledgeable now about how to conduct mobile banking and are more demanding than ever of their providers to deliver such services online,” he says.

The respondents’ self-assessed proficiency in using personal finance technologies is impressive. Large majorities-ranging between 63% and 85%—say they are well able to use mobile banking apps and financial management websites and apps. Proficiency is lower, however, when it comes to robo-advisors, share-trading apps and crypto platforms—niche financial tools that, according to Mr Mohanty, require more skill to use than online banking.

Age is a differentiator of tech skills for personal financial uses. The youngest cohorts are more likely to claim proficiency than older ones with all the technologies we inquired about (see figure 2). The differences are considerably less, however, when it comes to banking apps and websites, in which almost as many of the oldest respondents as the youngest ones claim proficiency.

Age differences are also evident in the importance that respondents give to using different finance technologies. All ages ascribe by far the greatest importance (61% overall) to technology that helps them manage their bank accounts. However, respondents closest to retirement are more likely than others to value technology in managing their Central Provident Fund (CPF) account, a compulsory savings and pension plan for working Singaporeans; whereas managing personal investment portfolios is more important to those in mid-career (35-54 year-olds).

According to Mr Lam, age is declining as a basis of segmentation when it comes to adoption of personal finance technologies. “We’ve found that certain psychographic criteria, such as openness to learning, provides a better basis of segmentation,” he says. “There are young, digital-generation people who are averse to using financial planning tools, for example, while older generations are now much more open to banking and even investing digitally, especially since covid-19 took hold.”