The purpose behind the launch of i-Sight is to create an innovative and leading web-based tool for the enhanced understanding of Britain's millions of retail investors.

i-Sight is a leading information service and provides insight to assist businesses in assessing and predicting investor behaviour over a given period.

The newly developed tool is a data tracker of predictive and retrospective decision making and activity among Britain's retail investor sector.

There are three core components of the tool. These are investor activity, attitudes and outlook for the following investment categorisations: regional, sector and an asset class.

The primary aim of the research is to establish and then communicate to financial product manufacturers the distinctive variances in the needs, aspirations and drivers of direct investors in Britain's financial services market place.

With the FSA's Retail Distribution Review (RDR) set to shake up the intermediary distribution market, investment companies may be driven to source an increasing segment of their business activity from the non-advised retail investor space.

This report will tell you:

• Who is going direct? The report covers the demographics and behaviours of investors.
• The report also identifies the financial needs, goals and risk profile of people in this part of the market.
• How they buy; why they go direct, what processes they use before investing as well as what triggers their specific investment choices.
• Their investing and trading style, levels of expertise, outcomes and levels of satisfaction with their performance.
• The report also goes deeper to reveal psychographic typology within this part of the market and identifies any clear subsets that exist within and detailed information as to their attitudes and behaviours.
• Transaction frequency and volume by product group.
• How they buy and form trust with financial services providers.
• What product types they hold, how frequently they transact and which providers they are using for their transactions.
• The size of the direct market and how attractive it is in terms of product holdings, investment amounts and investor numbers.

The aim of this quantitative study is to better understand the saving and retirement plans and expectations of British consumers in light of upcoming legislative change.

Specifically focusing on:
-     Any anticipated pension switching intentions consumers have (in the cases where they have one or more).
-     Attitudes towards auto-enrolment and likely behavior in relation to these changes.
-     Identification of any potential segments that could result in pension cannibalization across the industry.
-     Work/Retirement plans i.e. will people continue to work full time, or part time once they retire?
-     Implications for corporations in delivering pensions that meet the compliance levels for pension placement.

The study provides a snapshot of saving and investment engagement levels and propensity to switch pension funds, while also assessing individuals' knowledge of how much money they have in their pension funds and the fee levels they pay.

This report is a nationwide breakdown of the client experiences of UK financial services' customers across a range of product and service areas.

With a heavy behavioural slant, this study is in field and involves thousands of people - the aim is to make an assessment of the broad variety of needs/hopes/wishes across the population and to look at specific segments.

To assess overall levels of consumer content and positive experiences from dealings with financial services companies, CoreData Research has devised a proprietary multi-faceted measurement tool.

By collecting consumer feedback from three distinct points of view (albeit, modestly correlated), the group is able to produce a more categorical measurement of the client experience.

A triangulation of satisfaction, advocacy and trust/engagement is very powerful in revealing the true sentiment that individuals have towards the various companies and institutions.

This is the CoreData Research Sie Metrics Index.

The CoreData Research Financial IQ study for the UK is an extensive assessment of British levels of financial literacy and understanding.

Individuals who take part receive an automatically generated rating as to their Financial IQ at the end of participation.

The study covers many areas of financial engagement and appreciation, some of these include:

• Levels of financial terminology understanding.
• Self-assessment of knowledge levels.
• Individual's degree of confidence in dealing with all matters financial.
• Individual's relationship with money.
• Each person's role within household decision making in relation to money.
• Financial security levels.
• Expectations in retirement.
• Life expectancies, in relation to pensions and financial adequacy in retirement.
• Attitudes towards life insurance - and value placed on 'loved ones' versus tangible assets etc.
• Number of pension funds held, other areas they may have funds.
• Approach to information that is financial in nature.
• How individuals take advice, and attitudes towards advice?
• Expectations and timings relating to retirement - including expected funding levels required in retirement?
• Mortgages
• Credit Cards and Debt
• Retail Banking

The CoreData Research 'Women and Financial Services' study for the UK is an extensive assessment of British females and how they engage and interact with individuals and companies within the industry. Women often behave very differently to men in all facets of life, and financial decision-making is no exception.

In almost every consumer and retail services industry that exists globally, there is a commonly held assumption that women are different to men and products and services are designed with this in mind.

In the financial services industry, however, there appears to be no recognition of this important distinction or understanding of the way women approach purchasing decisions.

Mystery shopping carried out by Coredata Research in late 2009, and following the global financial turmoil, revealed some key differences between men and women in relation to the consumption of financial advice.
But it is not just in the area of financial advice that women demonstrate different drivers.

When it comes to financial matters, women's approach to decision-making and purchasing must be considered and analysed separately to that of men's.

This study incorporates an extensive quantitative data campaign involving more than 2,500 individuals.

The analysis includes female behaviours and attitudes towards saving, pensions, retirement, insurance and banking.

It considers the ways in which women respond to and consume financial information and view financial advice, their level of knowledge and understanding of financial terminology, their savings and pension situation, their attitudes towards insurance, retirement and other matters which impact on their financial well-being.

This quarterly report series tracks investor attitudes and sentiment across a range of areas.

By engaging with Britain's more active and involved investor collective CoreData Research has been able to create a useful tool for both direct and intermediary focussed product manufacturers.

This paper is borne out of the recent communications from the UK's Financial Services Authority in relation to its intent to level the playing field and bring clarity to the pricing procedures of Britain's investment administration market.

This research paper is a study to understand what likely dynamics will be unveiled if the FSA pushes ahead.

Primary research from both a channel perspective (financial adviser) and consumer (investor) perspective will attempt to measure the market impact now and into the future of the FSA's action.

The adviser research component of the study covers a broad breakdown of adviser attitudes towards pricing within platforms and segments the market to better understand these attitudes and how behaviour may be shaped as a result of any changes.

Meanwhile, the consumer component approaches the issue from two separate perspectives.

Firstly, what pricing triggers and tolerances consumers/investors have in terms of paying for investment administration?

And, secondly, the potential demand creation as market forces push or pull more or less investors to/away from advisers and the platforms these use to administer client investments, as a result of the enhanced information and pricing clarifications.

This study is the largest ever in the UK to focus specifically on understanding the behaviour of financial advisers.

Importantly the project is being undertaken at a critical juncture for the financial services sector, in fact, with so much change apparent in the industry the timing of the study is almost perfect.

The Retail Distribution Review, a general election and the continuing fall-out stemming from the financial crisis have and will continue to reshape the landscape that financial advisory practitioners are forced to operate within.

2010 is set to be a watershed year for the industry as the recommendations from the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) take shape in a post-general election environment, on top of the existing challenges of rebuilding trust among clients and consumers as the dust settles on the financial woes of the past two years.

With this in mind, CoreData Research has undertaken an extensive review of the industry's financial advice intermediaries better understand the present and likely future composition of the advice market.

The primary aim of the study is to produce an industry leading assessment of the whole UK advice market, and aim to provide manufacturers with insight as to what they can expect over the next three years from advisers by incorporating all the internal and most of the external factors that influence planner behaviour and actions.

This study is an annual syndicated study aimed at delivering administration providers key insights into the shifting demands of independent financial advisers (IFAs) and comprises an array of empirical data that identifies developing trends in the market.

In the UK, CoreData Research has covered the development of wraps and platforms for several years and carried out in-depth research for platform providers as part of their market entry strategies

As investors and markets recalibrate their attitudes towards risk and asset allocation in a post-global financial crisis, the administration engines responsible for the day to day operations and back-end procedures face their own challenges.

Market fuelled falls in asset levels and reductions in new business flows impact on fee revenue and other income-streams. As a result platforms require even greater scale in order to thrive along with cost effective maintenance and (where possible) value-adding effective enhancements.

The CoreData Research platform analysis assists groups in ensuring allocated resources are to those areas that fundamentally drive positive IFA experiences and also that any capital outlay is fully maximised in raising satisfaction and ultimately fund flows.

This report is a detailed analysis of the rising prominence of SIPPs in the UK financial services industry.

The study is comprised of three parts, which combine to provide an overarching view of the evolving UK SIPPs market.

The trio of methodologies engaged in this study are as follows.

• Feature & price modelling of the various offers in the market from an intermediary choice perspective.
• Statistical driver analysis of adviser inclination to use certain providers over others based on quantitative primary data collected from advisers for the purpose of the study.
• A qualitative component wherein advisers get to provide feedback on parts 1 and 2 of the study to provide the report with an over-arching sense of balance.

This is a regular, once a quarter, event whereby quantitative data is gathered from the UK adviser community and tracked over time to take into account shifts in sentiment and trends.

The purpose of this ongoing tracking research is to allow product manufacturers to best understand the latest needs and wishes of financial advisers.