Motivation

Pension calculators are the kind of financial planning tools that are commonly seen on the web and that are often promoted by financial product providers. Many of these tools are overly simplistic and ignore factors which need to be considered in long-term financial decision making.

The Pension Pot Calculator focuses on presenting a range of analyses on a single screen, and a key aim was to provide immediate feedback on how changes in planning assumptions affect potential long-term returns. Rich Internet Application technologies are capable of providing a high level of functionality and responsiveness on the web, and so Adobe Flex was chosen as the technology to be employed.

Overview

The Pension Pot Calculator is a Flex application that projects the future value of a portfolio, in both today’s and actual money terms, based on factors such as the client’s contributions and investment strategy, and the anticipated inflation rate. All calculations and charts update in real-time as values are entered or updated, allowing the user to evaluate different scenarios quickly and easily.

Rather than constraining the user to choose a single scenario and viewing a single projection, the Pension Pot Calculator presents a range of projections covering scenarios from pessimistic to optimistic. This allows the user to view the scenario that most closely matches their own attitude to risk, while still being able to compare the results of other scenarios, and thus get an insight into the degree of uncertainty involved in the forecasts.

The Pension Pot calculations depend on several factors, including the size of monthly contributions, the anticipated age of retirement, and the rate of inflation. The Quick Comparison section of the application allows users to gain a better understanding of the impact of a selected factor on the projected results, for example, to see how the projected pension pot varies for a range of monthly contributions.

Users can adjust the values used for the comparative calculations by increasing or decreasing the values, or by adjusting the interval between successive values. Clicking on the bars on the Quick Comparison chart causes that scenario to become the selected scenario, with the rest of the application (such as age or contribution selectors, and the Your Projection chart) updating accordingly.