Author: Aisha Mahmood

The FCA pension withdrawal surge recorded in 2025/26 has laid bare just how profoundly tax uncertainty is reshaping retirement behaviour, with £91.2 billion withdrawn from pension pots accessed for the first time in the year, according to new Financial Conduct Authority figures. That represents a 22% rise from £75 billion the previous year and is 70% higher than the £53.6 billion recorded in 2023/24. What the FCA pension withdrawal surge tells portfolio managers The pace of withdrawals has comfortably outrun the growth in the number of pots being accessed. The number of pensions accessed for the first time rose 7%…

The pension withdrawal surge in 2025/26 has produced figures that any long-term portfolio planner should read carefully: £91.2bn was withdrawn from pension pots accessed for the first time, a 22% rise from £75bn the previous year and 70% higher than the £53.6bn recorded in 2023/24, according to new data from the Financial Conduct Authority. The number of pensions being accessed rose only 7% year-on-year to just over 1.04 million, meaning the average sum leaving each pot has grown considerably.Why the Pension Withdrawal Surge in 2025 Is More Than a HeadlineThe gap between the 22% increase in money withdrawn and the…

The gender pensions gap retirement problem is being misdiagnosed, and the consequences of that misdiagnosis will fall hardest on women approaching the end of their working lives. Caitlin Southall, director of SSAS transformation and proposition at WBR Group, argues that framing the gap as a savings shortfall is too narrow a lens, and the evidence increasingly supports her view.The Pensions Policy Institute published research showing that women aged 55 to 59 hold around 54% of the pension wealth of their male counterparts in the UK. More revealing still, solving the gender pay gap in isolation would leave women with only…

RBC Brewin Dolphin’s head of intermediaries, Ian Kloss, has placed clear, jargon-free communication at the centre of what good investment advice looks like, arguing that the ability to explain a portfolio as if the client knows nothing is not a soft skill but a professional discipline. For advisers managing clients who are approaching or already in retirement, that framing carries real weight: a client who does not understand what they own is a client who may panic at the wrong moment, with consequences for sequence-of-returns risk that no asset allocation model can fully offset.The case for plain-language portfolio communicationThe phrase…

UK D2C market growth is running “much faster” than the adviser platforms market, according to Platforum’s latest ‘UK D2C: Investor Experience’ report, the final instalment in its 2026 UK D2C series. The findings carry real implications for self-directed investors managing their own ISAs or SIPPs, particularly those watching platform costs erode their long-term returns. Neo-Brokers Drive UK D2C Market Growth With Mobile-First Appeal The headline numbers are difficult to ignore. Trading 212 and InvestEngine both recorded customer growth of 50% year-on-year, while Freetrade almost doubled its user base. According to Trust Intelligence, Freetrade has now built a following of 1.6…

HENRYs financial advice demand is running at its highest recorded level in Quilter’s latest research, with 84% of high earners, not rich yet (HENRYs) saying they would consider taking financial advice in future, according to the firm’s Value of Advice Report. Conducted by Boring Money and based on research with more than 2,000 people who have never received financial advice, the report paints a picture of a generation that recognises its own knowledge gaps but has not yet bridged them with professional support.For a portfolio-focused reader, the headline statistic matters less than what it implies about timing. HENRYs are typically…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has signalled a decisive shift in ambition for the FCA tokenisation roadmap, calling for the UK to move beyond test environments and create the infrastructure for tokenised assets to operate at scale across wholesale markets. Speaking at a City of London dinner on 22 September, FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi said the era of pilots and sandboxes had run its course, with firms now seeking what he described as “full production and permanence.”For investors and portfolio managers watching from the sidelines, the question is not whether tokenisation will arrive in wholesale markets, but at what…

Karen Ward JP Morgan strategy chief for EMEA has a pointed message for UK savers and their advisers: holding too much in cash is not caution, it is a risk in its own right. Ward, managing director and EMEA chief market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, argues that Britain’s deeply entrenched risk aversion is causing measurable financial harm, and that education alone will not be enough to address it.Her concern is rooted in a specific number. UK households have accumulated more than £1 trillion in savings, with 60% of it sitting in cash. For savers with a time horizon…

New data from Amundi’s latest Decoding Investors study underlines a widening gap in financial advice retirement confidence: half of investors who receive professional advice say they are very confident about funding their retirement, compared with just 14% of those who have never accessed advice. For anyone managing a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) or drawing down in later life, that gap deserves careful attention. What the Advice Gap Means for Portfolio Planning Confidence alone does not pay retirement income, but it tends to correlate with better-structured portfolios and more consistent saving behaviour. The Amundi findings arrive at a moment when personal…