Trust: What Customers Want Most
Fifteen years ago, when I was Head of Investments at HSBC, we set out to understand what mattered most to people when choosing a financial adviser. We expected answers like qualifications, products, or price competitiveness.
The response was strikingly clear: the number one priority was Trust.
Not performance charts. Not fees. Not product menus. Trust.
And yet, in financial services, trust has always seemed to matter least to the institutions themselves.
The Trust Deficit in Financial Services
For over two decades, Edelman’s Trust Barometer has tracked public sentiment across industries. Year after year, financial services sits at the bottom of the table. Even after the 2008 crash, subsequent reforms, and waves of regulation, the public still perceives the sector as opaque, self-serving, and extractive.
While technology, healthcare, and education have climbed in trust, finance has struggled to shift its reputation. The message is clear: despite the rhetoric, people don’t feel financial services acts in their best interest.
Why Institutions Miss the Point
Inside the industry, priorities have been shaped by balance sheets and sales targets. Advisers have been pressured to sell products rather than build relationships. Qualifications and compliance processes have multiplied, but they don’t address the deeper issue: are clients being served with honesty, transparency, and care?
This structural misalignment means that what matters most to clients — trust — is what matters least in the institutional hierarchy.
The Birth of The Trusted Adviser Project
It was in this context that I launched The Trusted Adviser Project. The mission was simple yet radical: to rebuild financial advice on the foundation of trust.
Instead of selling products, advisers could focus on understanding people’s goals, values, and lives. Instead of opaque charging structures, they could be transparent. Instead of extracting wealth from clients, they could empower them to grow it.
The project was never about a single firm. It was about shifting a culture. From intermediaries extracting value, to trusted advisers enabling it.
From Project to Movement: The Academy of Life Planning
Over the past 15 years, that mission has grown into the Academy of Life Planning. What started as a project has become a global community.
Through initiatives like The GAME Plan, Planning My Life, Financial Life Coach, M-POWER, and Get SAFE, we’re equipping both advisers and individuals to plan differently — putting human capital, transparency, and empowerment at the centre.
We believe financial planning is not just about money. It’s about life planning — aligning your wealth, work, and choices with your deepest values.
A Call to Action
The data is clear: people want to trust their advisers. The industry has failed to provide it. The Trusted Adviser Project exists to close that gap.
If you’re an adviser who believes in building relationships over selling products, or an individual who wants to take control of your financial future without fear of exploitation, you are part of this story.
Fifteen years on, my mission remains the same:
👉 To replace extraction with empowerment.
👉 To put trust back where it belongs — at the heart of financial advice.
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