Author: Aisha Mahmood

UK inflation rises in July 2026 to 3.1%, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 19 August 2026, putting renewed pressure on household budgets and raising questions for anyone managing income in or near retirement.The headline rate represents a 0.3 percentage point increase from the 2.6% recorded in June. Core inflation held steady at 2.6%, while the goods annual rate climbed from 1.7% to 2.2%. Services inflation eased slightly, from 3.6% to 3.4%, though it remains the component most relevant to domestic spending patterns that retirees tend to experience directly.What…

State pension planning questions have become more pressing for advisers in 2026, as a combination of rising claim ages, contracting-out complexity and widespread client confusion threatens to undermine even well-constructed retirement income plans. Research by Royal London found that almost half of those not yet retired have never checked their state pension forecast, and 35% incorrectly believe the state pension is paid automatically once they reach state pension age. That gap between assumption and reality can be costly.The state pension is not simply a benefit that arrives on schedule. It is a component of retirement income that interacts with drawdown…

The FCA targeted support PECR conflict has moved from theoretical concern to practical obstacle, with a regime finalised by the Financial Conduct Authority on 26 February 2026 and due to go live from 6 April 2026 now running headlong into privacy rules that could prevent firms from reaching the very customers it is designed to help. For anyone managing a self-invested or workplace pension, the stakes are worth understanding. The FCA spent years investigating the so-called advice gap: the reality that, by its own account, 91% of the UK population does not receive financial advice. Targeted support was conceived as…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has placed FCA wealth manager AI risks alongside fees, fair value and financial crime at the top of its supervisory agenda, issuing fresh warnings to a sector that manages almost £1tn of retail client assets. The regulator’s intervention arrives at a moment when the broader AI regulatory environment is also shifting beneath firms’ feet.What the FCA survey foundThe FCA’s latest Wealth Management Survey, covering around 400 firms that collectively support more than 5.5 million retail clients, called on businesses to strengthen standards across several fronts, according to Money Marketing. Lucy Castledine, director of consumer investments…

The protection gap and pre-sale underwriting are now at the centre of a serious industry debate, prompted by the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study interim report, which finds that while protection functions reasonably well for existing customers, a substantial portion of the population remains entirely unprotected. For portfolio-focused readers, this is a structural issue worth watching: the gap between those who need protection and those who hold it is a drag on household financial resilience, and the industry’s response may reshape how cover is distributed and underwritten.The headline number is arresting. Fifty-eight per cent of UK adults hold no pure…

Iress UK earnings rise has arrived in headline fashion: the technology provider’s UK business posted a 43% increase in adjusted EBITDA to £4.6 million in the first half of 2026, driven by a combination of disciplined cost management and continued investment in product development and AI capabilities.UK recurring revenue grew 3% year-on-year, while operating expenses fell 5.3% over the same period, according to the company’s half-year results published on 17 August. For portfolio holders in the wealth-management software space, those two movements together tell an instructive story: top-line growth remains measured, but margin expansion is doing real work.Xplan platform consolidates…

A decade of hard-won progress on pensioner poverty has gone into reverse, with the single pensioner poverty rise now most acute among divorced women and those who never married, according to fresh research from consultancy LCP. For anyone building a retirement income strategy, the data is a reminder that household structure is not a peripheral detail: it is central to sequencing risk and income adequacy.What the LCP Data ShowsLCP’s paper draws on a previously unpublished breakdown of official Department for Work and Pensions data. It reveals that overall pensioner poverty climbed from 15.7% in 2012/13 to 18.6% in 2023/24, reversing…

The connection between mini milestones and financial advice is not one that features in most practice development guides, yet it may be one of the most practically useful ideas for advisers working with clients who are approaching or navigating later life. The events that move us most are not always the ones that come with a formal agenda.It is the large, scheduled transitions (retirement, divorce, inheritance) that traditionally prompt people to seek professional financial guidance. Those moments carry obvious financial weight, and the advice profession has built its client-engagement model around them. But a quieter category of life event sits…

The week’s most consequential story for retirement savers concerns the pension inheritance tax reforms set to take effect from 6 April 2027, with AJ Bell warning that HMRC’s proposed framework could expose estates to effective tax rates far beyond the headline 40% IHT rate. For anyone managing a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) or drawing on pension freedoms, the implications deserve careful attention well before that date arrives. The Pension Inheritance Tax Reforms: What Is at Stake From 6 April 2027, unused pension funds and death benefits will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax, a change that GoCardless estimates will…