Introducing the Financial Happiness Index™ – How do people really feel about their finances?

Financial happiness isn’t just about how much money someone has. It’s shaped by how secure they feel day to day, how confident they are making financial decisions and how well they cope when life, markets or the economy change.

The Financial Happiness Index™ gives advice firms a new behavioural benchmark for understanding how clients really feel about their financial lives and how that changes over time.

Built on real client insight

The Financial Happiness Index™ is built on a live dataset established in July 2023 and growing by around 4,000 responses each month, giving advice firms a real-time view of financial happiness and a meaningful benchmark over time.

Financial resilience

How stable someone feels day-to-day, including income, savings, and the ability to absorb financial shocks.

Emotional resilience

How well someone feels able to cope, adapt and maintain a sense of progress when financial pressure increases.

Financial knowledge

How confident someone feels making financial decisions, and whether money worries are affecting their wellbeing.

Financial confidence moves with the world around us

We understand that your clients’ financial happiness doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It shifts with the world around them. The Financial Happiness Index™ captures that in real time.

When inflation eases, interest rates change, markets move or geopolitical events create uncertainty, clients do not just respond rationally, they respond emotionally. The index helps advice firms see those shifts as they happen, giving them a clearer view of where clients may need reassurance, education or a more meaningful conversation about their financial future.

Turn client sentiment into actionable insight

The Financial Happiness Index™ isn’t just a score for individual clients, it’s a practice-level insight tool. Updated every quarter, using information gathered during the Dynamic Planner fact find process, the national benchmark allows advice firms to compare their clients against aggregated, fully anonymised benchmark data, segmented by age, gender, marital status, and attitude-to-risk profile, allowing them to:

Benchmark your clients

Compare your client base against aggregated, anonymised national data to understand how your clients’ financial happiness compares with the wider picture.

Track progress over time

See how your clients’ financial happiness evolves across review cycles, and how external events such as Budget announcements, interest rate changes or market volatility affect sentiment.

Identify advice opportunities

Our data shows meaningful differences by gender and life stage. These insights can help you tailor communication, education and support for specific client segments.

Evidence better outcomes

Improvement in index scores over time can provide tangible, data-led evidence of the positive impact advice is having on clients’ confidence, resilience and long-term wellbeing.

Deepen risk conversations

Clients with higher willingness to take risk tend to score higher on the index. The data helps advisers distinguish confidence from financial resilience.

Speak to Dynamic Planner about how behavioural insight can strengthen your advice process

Want to understand how the Financial Happiness Index™ could help your firm benchmark client sentiment, evidence progress and support better client outcomes?

Request a demo