Emma RadmoreTherese Chambers, director of Consumer Investments at FCA, has spoken on the progress FCA has made in the past 10 years on getting a well working consumer investment market. While noting the successes of the RDR, she said FCA now wants to act to make financial advice more accessible, and this is the main reason for its current consultation on core investment advice. She said responses show that firms are keen to do more and support the premise of a core investment advice regime. However, a number of comments suggest that the proposals in current form may not work for a number of businesses. She also said FCA appreciates that firms may want to see the outputs from the advice and guidance boundary review before they will commit to implementing the simplified regime. On that, she confirmed that accumulation products (such as GIAs, ISAs and pension wrappers) would be within the scope of the review. FCA is keen to get the review right, so it will take time.
She moved on to discuss the future disclosure framework – and, again, FCA is currently analysing responses to its Discussion Paper. She then spoke to the Consumer Duty and said FCA has seen good progress in implementation. There are areas in which FCA thinks firms could already be doing more to help consumers, and which the Consumer Duty will emphasise.
Finally, she reminded firms of the Regulatory Sandbox, which can allow firms to test innovative propositions on Personalised Guidance.