Professional June 2021

INDUSTRY NEWS

Capita’s employee wellbeing offering supported LEVEL FINANCIAL Technology, a financial health platform, has used open finance technology from Moneyhub, a market leading data and intelligence platform, to support their personal financial management app for 41,000 employees at business process outsourcing and professional services company Capita. The app gives employees the ability to keep track of their income and budget throughout the month, access salary advances and automatically save part of their monthly wage into savings accounts with high interest. It also provides financial education and advice from the Money & Pensions service. Stephen Holliday, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Level Financial Technology, said: “It is our belief that businesses must play a leading role in the financial health of their staff, and the pandemic has accelerated the need for technology that enables employees to improve their financial wellbeing.” Samantha Seaton, CEO of Moneyhub, said: “At Moneyhub, we believe in championing the importance of financial wellbeing and have developed open finance and open banking technology to do just that. We look forward to how this offering will develop in the future.”

Security awareness A RECENT survey conducted on behalf of KnowBe4, a provider of security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, finds that the UK workforce is ill-prepared to face today’s expanding cybersecurity threat landscape. The report, Furloughed workers: A second wave , a second look (https://bit.ly/3aF5kVF), sets out to understand, from a human perspective, what extended furlough and transitions in and out of employment have meant to employees. Of a thousand recently furloughed employees, 41% admitted that their company had never offered them a security awareness training course, while 14% have gone as far as to say that their employer has not taken security seriously enough. Of those who did receive training, 29% of respondents conceded that it had been at least six months or more since the last training course. Only 7% of respondents received a security awareness refresher course upon return to work. Only 7% of respondents in organisations that had implemented security measures viewed them as a barrier to work; 40% of respondents recognised that the measures are necessary despite finding them annoying; and 59% shared that they felt reassured by the controls. One in four (25%) have received a phishing email in the last six months relating to covid-19 or furlough. Upon return to work: 42% chose to sort through their emails quickly in an effort to get back to business as usual, increasing the likelihood of falling victim to a phishing attack; 14% either deleted all their emails or ignored/archived them; and 10% had their emails managed by their employer or a colleague over the furlough period. On average, respondents have received unexpected meeting notifications twice a week. Javvad Malik, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, commented: “Since the mass shift to remote working ... we have seen an undeniable amplification in cyberattacks” adding that “it is pivotal that an organisation’s security strategy includes on-going security awareness training. This is especially true as cybercriminals innovate and adopt new methods such as employing phishing links disguised in meeting invites.”

NOW: Pensions urges lowering of AE age SPEAKING AT the Professional Pensions Defined Contributions Digital Event in April, Adrian Boulding, director of policy at NOW: Pensions, urged the government to lower the age of automatic enrolment from 22 to 18. Boulding said: “Those early years of contributions are the most valuable, as they gain from over 40 years of compound interest growth through investment. And age 18 to 22 is also a period where for many there are less pressures on their finances, as the years of mortgage payments and raising children mostly still lie ahead. “Getting these early contributions in can be particularly important for women, as it enables them to get a period of full contributions under their belt before family responsibilities lead to years out of the labour market or part-time employment. Starting earlier will help to address the gender pension gap.”

CEST tool usage data IN MARCH, HM Revenue & Customs published updated usage data of its check employment status for tax (CEST) tool since it was enhanced in November 2019 (http://bit.ly/2WEYSFM). The data, which is being updated quarterly going forward, is intended to strengthen user confidence in the determinations given by the service. Further releases of the data will occur quarterly in June and September 2021.

In the period 25 November 2019 to 28 February 2021, there have been 1,214,229 uses of CEST. Of these, 511,284 (42%) were made by workers, 682,167 (56%) by hirers, and 20,778 (2%) by agencies. The overall outcomes of the 1,214,229 uses: ● 623,445 (51%) were outside the off-payroll working rules or self- employed for tax purposes ● 353,173 (29%) were inside the off-payroll working rules or employed for tax purposes ● 237,611 (20%) were undetermined. The usage for the three months to February 2021, show a surge but nothing like that in the three months to March 2020; see the chart.

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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |

Issue 71 | June 2021

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