A professional body may believe it is protecting financial planning by excluding challenges to the established model. It may actually be protecting its members from the very ideas they most need to hear. I was scrolling through the programme for this year’s Festival of Financial Planning when the pattern became difficult to ignore. There were … Continue reading The Establishment Is Defended. The Market Keeps Moving. The Profession Is Left Looking Backwards.
Tag: business
When Human Agency Looks Like Sales Resistance
Why the “DIY client” may be the future of financial planning, not a prospect to defeat I recently read a sales article about how advisers should handle people who prefer to manage their own finances. It described the “DIY prospect” as a battle. Advisers were told to weed such people out before they wasted time, … Continue reading When Human Agency Looks Like Sales Resistance
When a Professional Body No Longer Recognises the Profession
The Personal Finance Society is losing members. Is retirement really the whole explanation—or is it suffering from a growing relevance deficit? The Personal Finance Society has lost almost 2,000 members in a year. According to its 2025 Annual Report, membership fell from 38,703 to 36,807—a decline of 4.9%. Membership revenue fell from £7.66 million to … Continue reading When a Professional Body No Longer Recognises the Profession
The First Dividend From AI May Be an Agency Dividend Before It Becomes a Financial Dividend
On 25 August 2026, McKinsey published two complementary pieces on the next stage of artificial intelligence: its global survey, The State of AI in 2026: On the Road to ROI, and a shorter commentary, Four Perspectives on What Matters Now in AI. Together, they reveal an important tension. AI adoption is accelerating, individual productivity and … Continue reading The First Dividend From AI May Be an Agency Dividend Before It Becomes a Financial Dividend
Who Gets the Decision Dividend? AI Is Making Intelligence Cheap. Financial Services Has Not Yet Passed the Saving to the Customer.
McKinsey’s 26 August 2026 article, “The decision dividend: How AI creates economic value,” caught my attention because it describes, in corporate terms, something very close to the shift we have been exploring in financial planning. Its central argument is that AI’s biggest economic gains may not come from replacing labour, but from making better decisions … Continue reading Who Gets the Decision Dividend? AI Is Making Intelligence Cheap. Financial Services Has Not Yet Passed the Saving to the Customer.
The Next Financial Platform Won’t Own Your Money. It Will Help You Understand Your Life.
On 26 August 2026, two headlines appeared that seem to contradict each other. Citywire reported: “Platform acquisitions are dead, CEOs say.” On the same day, the Wall Street Journal reported: “Vanguard Buys Wealth Management Platform Altruist in $4 Billion Deal.” Platforms are dead. Vanguard has just spent roughly $4 billion buying one. Both things can … Continue reading The Next Financial Platform Won’t Own Your Money. It Will Help You Understand Your Life.
Raising the Standard for Non-Intermediating Financial Planning
If financial planning is to become independent of product intermediation, it must become more accountable — not less There is a saying often attributed to Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” There is no reliable evidence that Gandhi actually said it. But the sentiment … Continue reading Raising the Standard for Non-Intermediating Financial Planning
When the Badge Becomes the Blindfold
Before You Trust the Badge, Use Intelligence A difficult conversation with QROPS victims forced me to revisit what regulation actually does, what it does not do, and why understanding should come before intermediation. It also reminded me that the people trying to help have feelings too. It is after three in the morning as I … Continue reading When the Badge Becomes the Blindfold
Why Does a Three-Hour Problem Lead Naturally to a Thirty-Year Commercial Relationship?
Why Does a Three-Hour Problem Lead Naturally to a Thirty-Year Commercial Relationship? If you can now earn a good living solving people's financial problems without capturing their assets, why are you still making surrender of the assets a condition of helping them? A person walks into a financial planner's office with a problem. Perhaps they … Continue reading Why Does a Three-Hour Problem Lead Naturally to a Thirty-Year Commercial Relationship?
NatWest Wants 500,000 Investors. I Suggested Part of the Model Almost 20 Years Ago.
Democratising Coutts investment capability is a good idea. Calling a product-distribution pathway financial planning would not be. There is something rather familiar about NatWest's ambition to grow the number of its retail customers who invest with the bank from around 170,000 to more than 500,000. I know because, almost 20 years ago, I was sitting … Continue reading NatWest Wants 500,000 Investors. I Suggested Part of the Model Almost 20 Years Ago.
Academy of Life Planning 