The regulatory landscape has shifted again — and this time, it’s structural. The recent announcement from HM Treasury confirming consultation on a tougher regime for 34,000 appointed representatives is not just another compliance update. It is a directional signal about where the profession is heading and what kind of planner will thrive in the next … Continue reading The Bridge Is Real: What the New AR Regime Signals for Financial Planners Considering Their Next Chapter
Tag: fca
Beware the Open Gate: Why Stepping Outside the Regulatory Perimeter Puts You at Risk
A Get SAFE warning for citizens, savers, and investors There is a quiet but dangerous shift happening in UK financial regulation. The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed changes that would make it easier for individuals to be classified as “professional investors” — even without significant wealth — provided they pass a subjective assessment by a … Continue reading Beware the Open Gate: Why Stepping Outside the Regulatory Perimeter Puts You at Risk
🧭 Plain Words, Hidden Risks: The FCA’s New Push to “Eradicate Jargon”
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced plans to help firms “eradicate jargon” from investment disclosures — part of a wider package to make retail investing more “accessible and engaging” for ordinary Britons. On the surface, this looks like progress. After all, financial jargon has long been a tool of exclusion — designed to obscure, … Continue reading 🧭 Plain Words, Hidden Risks: The FCA’s New Push to “Eradicate Jargon”
💠 Captured AI: When the Regulator Becomes the Sandbox
By Steve Conley, Founder – Academy of Life PlanningDecember 2025 | 5 Minutes Read 🧩 The New Frontier — or the Same Old Game? The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has just launched what it calls a “safe space for AI” — a controlled testing environment where the UK’s largest financial firms can experiment with artificial … Continue reading 💠 Captured AI: When the Regulator Becomes the Sandbox
The Hidden Credit Line Fraud: How Dishonest Bankers and Captured Regulators Engineered the Largest SME Asset Strip in Modern UK History
AoLP / Get SAFE Special Investigation For nearly two decades, thousands of UK and Irish business owners believed they had failed. They believed it was their fault their loans collapsed, their businesses went under, their homes were seized, and their families were shattered. They were told they “mismanaged risk”, “failed to plan”, or “didn’t understand … Continue reading The Hidden Credit Line Fraud: How Dishonest Bankers and Captured Regulators Engineered the Largest SME Asset Strip in Modern UK History
🧭 Products and Services Must Be Structurally Trustworthy
Empowerment starts with trust — not just training. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is right to highlight the “understanding gap” under the Consumer Duty. Speaking at the Fair4All Finance Delivering Financial Inclusion Together Conference, chief executive Nikhil Rathi said widening access to financial services without improving understanding risks “points of vulnerability where small decisions carry … Continue reading 🧭 Products and Services Must Be Structurally Trustworthy
When Oversight Becomes Theatre: What the FCA Teaches Us About True Empowerment
By Steve Conley, Academy of Life Planning “A watchdog that must keep its masters solvent cannot bite.” Britain is often praised for having one of the most tightly regulated financial systems in the world. Yet, time and again — from PPI to car-finance commissions — we witness the same grim pattern: abuse, denial, exposure, compensation, … Continue reading When Oversight Becomes Theatre: What the FCA Teaches Us About True Empowerment
⚖️ Why We Still Need Claims Management Companies: Protecting the Public in a Captured System
By Steve Conley, Founder – Academy of Life Planning The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced a new multi-agency crackdown on “misleading” advertising by claims management companies (CMCs) and certain law firms handling motor-finance cases. The initiative, coordinated with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), is … Continue reading ⚖️ Why We Still Need Claims Management Companies: Protecting the Public in a Captured System
DIY Investors: Stop Listening to Moon Boys
All you DIY investors — it’s time to stop listening to the “moon boys” on TikTok and YouTube promising overnight riches. I might be a so-called TradFi Boomer, but I agree with the FCA on this one: keep it boring. Wealth is not created by gambling on the latest get-rich-quick scheme. Wealth is created, then … Continue reading DIY Investors: Stop Listening to Moon Boys
The Growth Agenda: Asset Hoovering by Another Name
Why Deregulation Isn’t Growth—It’s Extraction, Repackaged “You can’t regulate for trust by dismantling the brakes.” In the wake of the Mansion House reforms, a familiar story is unfolding. The government’s so-called growth agenda is, in truth, a revival of the old Piscean order—an extractive financial system masquerading as economic progress. It’s not about real innovation … Continue reading The Growth Agenda: Asset Hoovering by Another Name
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