Workplace savings platform Smarterly has appointed a former adviser to David Cameron as its corporate affairs and policy adviser.
Michael Johnson, who is currently a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, will provide advice, insight and strategic communications to Smarterly as it grows after a cash injection from a crowd funding campaign.
Mr Johnson said: "With 16 million UK adults having less than £100 in savings, and over 50 per cent of the UK workforce borrowing money to pay for basic needs, we need more engaging propositions to turn the UK into a nation of savers.
"Innovation is essential. 2015’s widely welcomed pensions freedoms facilitated considerable individual flexibility in retirement, but workplace schemes have been slow to personalise how they interact with the individual.
"Smarterly’s artificial intelligence-led workplace savings platform means that employees of all ages can be supported with an alternative to pensions, supporting younger people with their needs, and higher earners with tightening limits on pension savings."
Smarterly is an online savings and investments platform provider, offering workplace Isas facilitating payment through payroll deduction. Its clients include Aon, Samsung and OVO Energy.
Focused on the workplace, Smarterly supports companies with their financial wellbeing programmes and helps employees save with the convenience of payroll deduction, often with a contribution boost from their employer as a complement to pensions.
Phil Hollingdale, co-founder of Smarterly, said: "Financial advisers are not interested in giving advice to people with less than £100,000 in liquid assets. Consequently, the average consumer gets caught in the growing advice gap, so Smarterly provides a way for employees to make smart savings.
"Michael is an extremely important asset to our business and joins us at such an exciting stage in our growth. He’ll help position Smarterly as a supporter of employers, their employees and workplace savings generally."
After 21 years in investment banking, Mr Johnson ran David Cameron’s economic competitive policy group and has been a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies since 2009.
He is also the author of more than 40 pensions-related papers and called for the introduction of a Lifetime Isa - though has been critical of the product which the government eventually launched in 2016.
More recently he provided proposals to the Department for Work & Pensions and Treasury select committees for a Workplace Isa to compete with occupational pensions alongside, or within, the Lifetime Isa.
Earlier this year, Mr Johnson branded Royal Mail’s decision to set up the first collective defined contribution pension scheme in the UK as a "wholly unnecessary adventure, which the company's shareholders have yet to fully appreciate".
In the summer he wrote a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies calling for the abolition of pension tax relief in a bid to help low income savers and save the Treasury £10bn a year.
Martin Bamford, chartered financial planner and managing director for Surrey-based Informed Choice, said: "This is a heavyweight appointment for Smarterly and will bring significant pensions policy expertise to their business. There’s a huge role for improving financial wellbeing in the workplace and retirement is an important part of that conversation."
