Author: Aisha Mahmood

National Friendly has entered the term assurance market with its Friendly Life Cover proposition, making National Friendly term assurance available on both single and joint life bases through the Iress Exchange sourcing platform. The Bristol-based mutual is positioning the product as a straightforward, adviser-led solution in a segment where, according to chief executive Graham Singleton, a number of high-profile providers have recently withdrawn.What Friendly Life Cover offers policyholdersThe product pays a fixed lump sum on death, with the choice of a level or decreasing benefit structure. Terminal illness benefit is included as standard, accelerating to the full sum assured on…

PXN Investments and P1 Platform have announced a PXN business relief integration that will make an asset-backed Inheritance Tax Planning Service available directly within an adviser’s existing platform workflow, with a launch expected in Q4 of this year. The timing is deliberate: from 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and pension death benefits will be brought into an individual’s estate for inheritance tax purposes, and the two firms are positioning the partnership as a practical response to that structural shift. What the PXN Business Relief Integration Delivers The integration will allow advisers to apply for and view PXN’s Business…

The question of how long a financial adviser training programme should last has no single answer, but The Penny Group, an advice firm with offices in Hungerford, London, Sutton Coldfield and Woking, offers one of the more detailed frameworks available to aspiring entrants. Its structured academy, currently running with seven trainees at different stages, typically spans three years, though the firm is deliberate about treating that figure as a guideline rather than a deadline. Why the financial adviser training programme at The Penny Group spans three years Across the profession, The Penny Group’s approach sits in the middle of the…

Evelyn Partners MPS expansion has extended the reach of its Core and Index model portfolio ranges by making them accessible through onshore investment bond wrappers across five major adviser platforms: AJ Bell, Aviva, M&G, Quilter and Transact.Matthew Spencer, head of intermediaries at Evelyn Partners, said the move would give advisers greater choice in combining professionally managed portfolios with wrappers that support clients’ tax and financial planning needs. For advisers constructing income-efficient or intergenerational solutions, onshore bonds carry specific tax treatment that may suit certain client profiles, particularly where top-rate income tax deferral or assignment to a lower-rate beneficiary is part…

St James’s Place (SJP) has confirmed the SJP Technical Connection closure to external users, with access to the Techlink service ending on 6 March 2027. From the following day, the service will be available solely to advisers within the SJP group, cutting off a resource that financial planning firms, product providers and other retail financial services businesses have relied upon for the best part of a decade.What Technical Connection provides, and who it currently servesSJP acquired Technical Connection in 2016, and the business has continued to serve clients outside the group throughout that period. Its offering spans guidance on taxation,…

A Greenwich man has pleaded guilty to four fraud and forgery offences after constructing a fictitious Touchstone Exploration fake takeover bid in an attempt to drive up the company’s share price. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) confirmed the guilty plea following a criminal investigation it opened in March 2025.Christopher Woolcott, born on 23 April 1982 and resident in Greenwich, London, admitted one count of fraud by false representation and three counts of making a false instrument. According to MondoVisione, the plea was entered at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 10 September. Sentencing has been adjourned to a later date.How the…

Aberdeen Adviser SIPP growth has reached £1.15 billion in assets under administration less than a year after the product launched, with more than 5,000 accounts opened in that period, according to Money Marketing. For anyone monitoring the self-invested personal pension market, the pace of that accumulation deserves careful consideration.The average client holds over £200,000 within the SIPP, and customers are invested across a mix of models and managed funds. Those figures place this squarely in the retirement-planning segment: not accumulation-phase savers in their thirties, but people who have already built meaningful pension capital and are now managing how it is…

The quality of a financial plan means little if the adviser communication style used to deliver it fails to connect with the person on the other side of the table. That is the central argument Amanda Ford, co-founder of The Financial Planning Club, makes in a piece examining what genuinely personalised client service requires in practice. When one explanation does not fit all Ford draws on Insights Discovery, a framework that describes behavioural and communication preferences through four colour energies: Fiery Red, associated with directness and pace; Sunshine Yellow, with enthusiasm and possibility; Earth Green, with empathy and a focus…

The atomos MWA Financial acquisition, announced as an agreement for an undisclosed sum, brings together two businesses that describe themselves as sharing a common vision for holistic, long-term financial planning. For investors and retirees who rely on regulated advice, the deal raises a practical question: what does consolidation at this scale mean for continuity of service, cost structures, and the quality of planning they receive?What the atomos MWA Financial acquisition means in practiceAt the point of its own acquisition of Hawthorn Financial Services in April 2026, atomos MWA Financial had approximately £950 million in assets under advice and close to…