Author: Aisha Mahmood

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has renewed its FCA mini-bond investor warning, cautioning consumers that unregulated loan notes and mini-bonds remain a live threat to capital, even though the regulator permanently banned the marketing of such speculative illiquid securities to retail investors in 2021. The prompt for the latest alert is the collapse of Woodville Consultants, a litigation funder that raised money from retail investors through unregulated loan notes.What the Woodville Consultants collapse revealsThe numbers behind Woodville’s failure illustrate the scale of potential loss that can hide behind an apparently functioning business. According to Crowell & Moring, the company’s latest…

The finding that trust overtakes fees when choosing wealth managers will not entirely surprise those who have spent a career in this industry, but the scale of the gap is worth examining carefully. New research from TransUnion, drawn from a study of 1,000 US consumers with at least $20,000 in investable assets, found that 65% of existing investors ranked trust and reputation among their most important factors when selecting a wealth management provider, compared with 49% who cited fees and pricing.For a profession that has spent much of the past decade defending its fee structures under the scrutiny of consumer…

Pension IHT bond demand among UK financial advisers is building ahead of the government’s planned reform that will bring unused pension funds into estates for inheritance tax purposes from April 2027, according to data published by research platform Defaqto. The figures, drawn from Defaqto’s whole-of-market adviser research platform Engage, show Prudential retaining its position as the most recommended provider in both onshore and international bond categories during the first half of 2026, while Transact climbed to second place in the international bond rankings.For advisers helping clients with estate planning, the timing matters. The government’s own impact assessment estimates that, of…

The VCT investment limits expanded under last year’s Autumn Budget represent a material shift in what venture capital trusts (VCTs) can do for investors, not merely a technical adjustment to thresholds. For savers building tax-efficient income in a world of frozen allowances, the changes deserve closer attention than the headline coverage of upfront income tax relief has so far afforded them.Wider Universes, Larger Positions and Longer Backing PeriodsThe mechanics of the change are worth setting out plainly. From April, the gross assets a qualifying company can hold before investment have doubled to £30 million. The amount a company can raise…

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…