City watchdog aims to increase access to financial advice for consumers

The Financial Conduct Authority is working to make it easier for consumers to “invest with confidence” during the current cost of living crisis.

The city watchdog that laid out its strategy last year for consumer investments said it now wants to create a “separate and streamlined financial advisor system” to make it easier for consumers to get advice on investments.

The FCA is currently considering simplifying so-called “fact-finding” to make advice easier for both clients and firms. It is also looking at limiting investment scope to make advice “easier to understand and apply”.

Sarah Pritchard, executive Director of Markets at the FCA, stated that the proposals would make sound advice more accessible for Britons in a time of cost-of-living crises.

She stated that people in the UK should now have access to affordable and useful financial products and services that can improve quality of life and support the economy.

“These proposals are part our work to provide a consumer investment market where people can easily access subsidies, and don’t prevent companies from providing them.”

The watchdog is willing to discuss the proposals before making a decision on whether to proceed. Analysts at AJ Bell felt that the regulator’s decision was a welcome return towards streamlining, more than a decade after it had laid out similar plans.

Tom Selby said: “By offering simplistic advice from death, the FCA wants to poke a hole in the advice gap by encouraging more firms, undoubtedly including major banks and building societies, to enter the advice market.” Head of Policy Retirement at AJ Bell.

“In return, the regulator hopes that more people will take the advice and invest for the long term, rather than stash their savings in cash and risk seeing it eroded by inflation.”

Richard Wilson, head, Interactive Investor, described the move as a “watershed moment in the UK”.