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We have concluded our exciting 6-week policy sprint, supporting new ways to help consumers make important investment decisions.
With only 9% of UK consumers taking regulated financial advice in the past year, the sprint is part of our work on targeted support, which aims to tackle the gap between bespoke financial advice and guidance. At a showcase on 9 April 2025, FCA-authorised firms, including retail banks, platform providers and wealth managers, presented customer journeys they have developed to help and support people to consider cash to investment decisions.This included using advice models that were tested and then refined using real customers in real time. Our work on targeted support provides a unique opportunity to reset the rules to create a new form of help – targeted support – for consumers who face decisions about their finances. This is part of our work to support growth in the UK – in helping consumers make informed decisions around their finances we hope to support a greater culture of investment. This is the first policy sprint that we have run in this way, testing a future rule set before formal consultation involving industry, consumer groups and other members of the regulatory family, such as the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Information Commissioner’s Office. The aim of the sprint is to help accelerate the final policy proposals which will be put out for consultation by the end of June 2025.Sarah Pritchard, executive director, consumers, competition and international, said:'We want to see a consumer investment market where people can invest with confidence, understanding the risks and opportunities available to them. The sprint is an important step to achieving that goal, helping firms explore ways to support consumers and helping the FCA to refine the proposed policy framework before consultation. We look forward to seeing more innovative solutions emerge.‘We encourage firms and consumer groups to keep engaging with us, and for firms who are interested to use our sandboxes to start testing their innovative solutions now.’BackgroundThe Advice Guidance Boundary Review (AGBR) is a joint FCA and HM Treasury project to examine and narrow the boundary between financial advice and other forms of support. As outlined in our letter to the Prime Minister in December 2024, we recognise the importance of the AGBR to improve consumer outcomes and support wider economic growth that can benefit everyone.The AGBR aims to enable firms to give more support to consumers to make decisions about their pensions and investments. By helping consumers make more informed choices with their pensions and investments, we aim to help consumers meet their financial goals and provide capital to drive the economy and boost growth.This work is part of a package of initiatives that aims to change how consumers interact with retail investments. We have consulted on a product information regime for consumer composite investments, to empower firms to find better ways to communicate with consumers about investment products.Our first consultation, CP24/27, ‘Advice Guidance Boundary Review – proposed targeted support reforms for pensions’, was published in December 2024. Next stepsOur second consultation for pension and investments will be published in H1 2025.We support innovation; firms who want to test innovate ideas or to take part in other related initiatives in our Digital Sandboxes should email sandbox@fca.org.uk.
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-sto...-policy-sprint