British Consumer Index; Financial Optimism Index August 2013

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BCI – Financial Optimism Index; August 2013
The Index of British Consumers views on their Personal Financial Prospects
One in six people think their Personal Financial situation will improve.
The British Consumer Index(BCI) has today (26 August 2013) released the latest Financial Optimism Index.
One in six people think their personal financial situation will improve while one in 10 think it will get worse.
The August index shows that confidence fell from the all-time high achieved in July but remains higher than any
previous month since inception in January 2010.
The Financial Optimism Index measures how people think their personal financial situation will change over the
next few months.
While the August figure is the first fall since March the 3 month rolling trend is still rising. Looking back it can be
seen that August does tend to provide a fall in confidence.

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As ever the overall figure hides considerable differences in different sections of the population.
 If you are under 50 you are more likely to be optimistic
 If you are male you are more likely to be optimistic
 The most pessimistic are those between 65 and 69 years old.
 Those who are the Chief Income Earner for the family are less optimistic
For more details see the charts below or contact; Steve Abbott;
E- stevea@thebps.co.uk
T- 0203 286 1981
Notes: Figures are collected by The British Population Survey by face to face in home interviews with a
population representative sample of 1,000 adults aged 15+ per month (total sample size = 44,582). Index values
range between 100 (fully positive) and -100 (fully negative).
Fully analysable data is available from www.bcindex.co.uk

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Charts: 3 months to August 2013, n = 2,986
Males are slightly more positive.
There is a direct correlation between age and optimism. The older people are the less confident that things will
get better. The cross over point being around 50 yrs old.

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There is far more diversity in the numbers of people who think things will get worse when the index is looked at
by Social Grade.
In terms of Lifestage the distribution reflects the predominant age groups at each stage.

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There is no evidence of a ‘North/South’ divide when it comes to Financial Optimism.
Main Income earners for the household are less optimistic than those who do not carry that responsibility.