By Steve Conley
Founder — Academy of Life Planning
For all the polished language surrounding targeted support, one stark truth remains:
Targeted support is not advice. It is non-advised sales.
And in principle, we have no issue with that.
If a firm wants to sell products without a personal recommendation, that’s its prerogative.
Advised sellers — those who genuinely offer bespoke, regulated, personalised guidance — have nothing to fear.
But here’s the real story the industry is avoiding:
Only two firms have shown any appetite to deliver targeted support — one insurer and one bank.
Not exactly a revolution.
The FCA may present this as widening access, closing the advice gap, and giving consumers a “continuum” of help. But the economics of simplified advice have been tested over and over again for more than a decade.
It doesn’t work.
It cannot work without falling into one of two traps:
- Becoming full advice in disguise (and therefore costly, regulated, and commercially unviable)
- Becoming a sales funnel for the sponsoring institution
And the latter is where the risk to consumers lies.
The Real Cause for Concern: Deregulation of Advice
Our concern is not targeted support itself.
Our concern is the broader direction of travel.
The FCA is now openly discussing a major simplification of initial and ongoing advice rules — including deregulating areas that already produce serious and sustained consumer harm.
The regulator’s own data, year after year, tells the story:
- Ongoing advice charges taken without ongoing service
- Unsuitable product switches
- Unnecessary transfers
- High-fee wrappers
- Disguised commissions
- Consumers locked into long-term products they never needed
Add to that a weakening Financial Ombudsman Service and rising complaint fees for victims, and the picture becomes even starker.
Deregulating this environment doesn’t reduce harm — it compounds it.
We believe many of these consultation proposals risk repeating the very mistakes that created the advice gap in the first place. If you loosen standards in already-harmful areas, outcomes will deteriorate, not improve.
Consumers will be pushed deeper into systems designed for distribution, not empowerment.
The FCA Must Be a Watchdog — Not the City’s Guard Dog
The UK doesn’t need a regulator that protects business models.
It needs a regulator that protects people.
We need a watchdog — a guardian of structural trustworthiness — not a guard dog for the wealth-management industry.
When the regulator frames industry needs as political needs…
When simplification looks suspiciously like deregulation…
When consumer protection gets reframed as “barriers to growth”…
…it is ordinary people who pay the price.
And they are already paying it.
The advice gap is not caused by a lack of support.
It is caused by decades of structural extraction.
The solution is not new channels for selling simplified products.
The solution is empowering consumers with education, transparent planning, and access to human-capital-first models that remove intermediation from the centre of financial life.
That is exactly what the Academy of Life Planning was built for.
A Better Future: Empowerment Over Intermediation
We’ve long argued that:
- People want guidance, not product sales.
- They want sovereignty, not dependency.
- They want a plan for their life, not a portfolio for their provider.
Targeted support won’t deliver that.
Deregulation won’t deliver that.
More sales channels certainly won’t deliver that.
But education, human capital strategies, transparent planning, AI-enabled self-advice, and community mentorship will.
That is why Planning My Life, Financial Life Coach, and the broader AoLP movement exist:
to give people the tools to become their own planners — or to work with planners who are free from product conflict and institutional capture.
This is not a shift in regulation.
This is a shift in power.
Our Position in One Sentence
Targeted support is fine as long as it is understood for what it is: non-advised sales.
But deregulating advice — especially ongoing advice — will make outcomes worse, not better.
The FCA must champion structural trustworthiness, not protect structurally untrustworthy business models.
When the industry pushes for simplification, it must not become a shortcut to reduced protection.
The public deserve better.
And we will keep championing a system built on empowerment — not intermediation.
Join the Academy of Life Planning
Membership – £24/month
Unlock the tools, community, and continuous support to build a purpose-led, financially sustainable life and livelihood.
What’s included:
- Regular updates, webinars, and exclusive events to keep your planning sharp and your practice evolving
- Unlimited ‘bottomless’ email Q&A, giving you expert guidance whenever you need it
- Business planning templates and support for building a values-aligned practice
- Ongoing help to create a sustainable livelihood, with proven frameworks and peer community
- Continuous improvement and updates across all Academy resources
- Full access to the Academy Webinar VOD Channel
- AI Life Planner for personalised guidance, tools, and structured planning
- 30-day free trial of the HapNav lifetime cashflow app
- Financial Activation Metrics to track your transformation over time
- Optional mentorship sessions with Steve at £200/hour
Become part of a growing movement redefining financial planning.
Your journey toward sovereignty, clarity, and purpose starts here.
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