Influencing Financial Behavior: From Changing Minds to Changing Contexts

This article reviews interventions that are effective in changing behaviours in ways that enhance financial capability. Traditionally, behavior change has been seen through the lens of "changing minds": if we can change the way people think-their beliefs, attitudes, and goals-then we can change the way they behave. More recent developments in behavioral theory show that "changing contexts" can have a powerful effect on behavior: we can change behavior by sometimes quite subtle changes to the environment or context within which decisions are made. We focus largely on the influence of context and provide examples from current UK banks that have changed the "choice architecture" of their products.