Easy ‘access to advice’ is recognised by the Financial Conduct Authority as a worthy concept, however, all too often it introduces rules that run contrary to this important goal.
This is despite the fact that it has been demonstrated countless times that the more consumers able to work with advisers, the better it is for them and the economy as a whole. The cost of advice, and the sad fact that there are currently simply not enough advisers to meet demand, means that personal advice is not an immediate option for everyone.
For this reason, I believe the government and the watchdog also need to jointly focus upon access to information. We know that the vast majority of people need to put more into their pension pots, and start to do it earlier, yet how is this communicated to consumers?