A joint review between HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recommended a package of measures to improve access to advice and guidance when it was released in March 2016.
The report’s co-authors noted: “For our vision of more affordable and accessible advice and guidance to be realised, there will need to be continued commitment and cooperation; not only from regulators and government, but also employers, consumer groups and the financial services industry.”
As a result, FAMR recommended the establishment of a financial working group, formed of consumer and industry experts, to support progress in the 12 months following the review’s final report.
The Working Group
Members were been selected on the basis of their expertise and interest in advice and guidance, and also their ability to attend meetings and to contribute to its work.
The group includes a selection of consumer and industry experts from the FAMR Expert Advisory Panel, the Financial Services Consumer Panel, the FCA Smaller Business Practitioner Panel, and the FCA Practitioner Panel.
The members will act in a personal capacity rather than represent the views of their firm or organisation:
- Chair: Nick Prettejohn – Scottish Widows
- Alex Neill – Which?
- Caroline Barr – Financial Services Consumer Panel
- Chris Rhodes – Nationwide
- Clinton Askew – Chair, FCA Smaller Business Practitioner Panel & Citywide Financial Partners
- Craig Errington – FCA Smaller Business Practitioner Panel & Wesleyan Assurance Society
- David Bellamy – FCA Practitioner Panel & St. James’s Place
- Jackie Noakes – Legal & General
- Jayne-Anne Gadhia – FCA Practitioner Panel & Virgin Money UK
- Nick Hungerford – Nutmeg
- Nicky McCabe – Fidelity
- Richard Freeman – Old Mutual Wealth
- Robin Keyte – FCA Smaller Business Practitioner Panel & Keyte Chartered Financial Planners
- Sue Lewis – Chair, Financial Services Consumer Panel
- Steven Cooper – FCA Practitioner Panel & Barclays
- Teresa Fritz – Financial Services Consumer Panel
Three recommendations
The working group will take forward the following recommendations from FAMR:
Recommendation 12: The working group should work with employer groups to develop a guide to the top 10 ways to support employees’ financial health, and devise a strategy for rolling this out. It should align the timing of this with the FCA and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) joint factsheet for employers and trustees, which is due to be published in early 2017.
Recommendation 17: The working group should publish a shortlist of potential new terms to describe ‘guidance’ and ‘advice’ by Q3/Q4 2016.
Recommendation 18: The working group should lead a task force formed of interested stakeholders to design a set of rules of thumb and nudges with the aim of increasing consumer engagement. The working group should consider the crucial life stages at which these nudges and rules of thumb could be delivered and complete initial testing of these by Q1 2017.
