Pension Finance Lab

In 2022, the Leibniz Institute SAFE and the Goethe University Frankfurt have joined forces to develop and test a prototype of a data trustee platform, including a mobile application for individual pension planning. 

The Seasn app is coming

The Seasn app forms the basis of the platform, which allows users to upload their data on financial investments and pension entitlements. Interested people with pension entitlements in Germany can register for the trial version on the website and view their current pension situation, beginning at the end of 2023. The Seasn app is designed to give users answers to questions such as whether their future pension is sufficient for their current lifestyle, or what they can do to be financially secure in old age. 

Research by Goethe University and SAFE

In addition, users can provide pseudonymized data, ie., data that does not reveal their identity, for research via the platform. The SAFE Pension Finance Lab was founded to provide the technical and organizational infrastructure. By combining this data with in-app surveys, researchers at Goethe University and SAFE will be able to conduct sophisticated field experiments in the area of pension finance and, particularly, retirement planning. 

The Seasn app is funded by the Hessian Ministry of Science, the Hessian Ministry of Digital Affairs, and the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection.

Looking into your own financial future: Digital Pension Transparency
In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the podcast of the Centre Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI), SAFE Senior Researcher Andreas Hackethal explains why it is so difficult for many people to get a good idea of their own financial future and how an app can help to close such knowledge gaps. 

Identifying pension gaps in time even with low financial literacy
A joint study by SAFE and ZEW Mannheim shows the positive effects of having a digital pension overview that takes all three pillars of old-age provision into account