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Two in five Brits don’t know how much they are paid each month

Indoor shot of young European Caucasian girl looking at financial documents at home with deeply bored face looking sick and tired of her economic problems, trying to check counts and all details
Brits have become more financially forgetful due to their reliance on fintech such as contactless payments, auto-fill passwords, according to new research. Photo: Getty

Almost two in five Brits do not know how much they are paid each month, new research by Ocean Finance has found.

Some 39% don’t know their salary total, according to the survey of 1,000 UK workers.

The survey revealed that Brits have become more financially forgetful due to their reliance on fintech such as contactless payments, auto-fill passwords.

Over half (52%) of respondents couldn’t remember the last payment they made on their debit or credit card.

Nearly a third (30%) had forgotten about a subscription which was still coming out of their account, often not realising for several months. Of those 32% most often missed entertainment subscriptions for services such as Netflix (NFLX) or Spotify (SPOT).

A quarter (24%) overlooked other subscriptions such as software or digital publications. Some 23% forgot about gym memberships or subscriptions to fitness classes, 16% forgot about online shopping subscriptions such as Amazon Prime, and 5% forgot about food box subscriptions for meal plans delivered to their door.

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Forgetful Brits could end up hundreds of pounds out of pocket as the monthly average spend on subscriptions is £46 — adding up to £552 per year, according to Barclaycard data.

Two-thirds (65%) said they aren’t aware of how much they’re paying into their pension and 77% don’t know their credit score.

Many Brits struggle to recall financial details and security information such as passwords and login information, with 38% reporting that they rely on auto-fills to remember their passwords.

One in four (39%) of people admitted to experiencing a total blank on their PIN number, likely due to the rise of contactless payments and online shopping, according to the research.

Overall, women were better at remembering personal financial details than men, as 40% of female respondents felt confident in their ability to recall amounts spent and their financial information as opposed to 38% of men.

Older generations also tended to have a better grasp of their financial information — 46% of those aged 45 to 54 and 47% of 54- to 65-year-olds remembered the most about their finances. The worst age group for recall was 25 to 34, with only 35% confident in their recall.

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