It was 2011.I was Head of Investments at HSBC and Chair of the British Bancassurance Association’s Steering Group in the run-up to the Retail Distribution Review. I remember sitting in those meetings, confused about why the Sales Director always accompanied me. He never said a word. At the time, I thought it was simply political … Continue reading The Day the Banks Chose Extraction Over Trust
Tag: finance
Trust Delivers Growth — Growth Doesn’t Deliver Trust
By Steve ConleyFounder, Academy of Life Planning & Get SAFETransparency Task Force Advisory Group Member When Britain’s regulators talk about “balancing” growth with consumer protection, they reveal that they’ve misunderstood the order of cause and effect. It is trust that delivers growth — not the other way around. No economy, no company, no nation can … Continue reading Trust Delivers Growth — Growth Doesn’t Deliver Trust
🕊️ The Betrayal of the Founders: How Finance Lost Its Soul
By Steve Conley – Academy of Life Planning Every age begins with visionaries who point humanity toward freedom — and ends with institutions that turn that freedom into a business model. It happened in religion. It happened in politics. And it has happened again in finance. The pattern is ancient and precise: a truth is … Continue reading 🕊️ The Betrayal of the Founders: How Finance Lost Its Soul
🧭 Structurally Trustworthy Education: Teaching Our Children Freedom, Not Dependency
By Steve Conley, Founder of the Academy of Life Planning Background: Financial Education Returns to the Curriculum After more than a decade without review, the UK Government has announced plans to include financial education within the national curriculum for both primary and secondary schools. The proposals, warmly welcomed by many financial planners, aim to make … Continue reading 🧭 Structurally Trustworthy Education: Teaching Our Children Freedom, Not Dependency
💥 Is Budget Anxiety Killing the AUM Adviser Fee Model?
By Steve Conley, Founder of the Academy of Life Planning Adviser platforms are seeing record-breaking inflows — and yet, paradoxically, the AUM-based advice model is showing signs of terminal decline. According to new data from the lang cat, adviser platform outflows hit a record £17.94bn in Q3 2025 — the highest on record — even … Continue reading 💥 Is Budget Anxiety Killing the AUM Adviser Fee Model?
🌍 The Real Wealth of Nations: Lessons in Human Capital for Holistic Wealth Planners
“Wealth in the broadest sense includes people.” — Irving Fisher (1906) The world’s greatest untapped resource isn’t oil, gold, or digital currency — it’s human capital. A recent study from Riga Stradiņš University and al-Farabi Kazakh National University, “Problems of Development and Effective Use of Human Capital in Developing Countries” (Muravska et al., 2020), offers … Continue reading 🌍 The Real Wealth of Nations: Lessons in Human Capital for Holistic Wealth Planners
Bitcoin Improves the Efficient Frontier Historically — But Not Reliably or Durably
By Steve Conley, Founder of the Academy of Life Planning “In markets, as in life, what works in hindsight rarely works forever.” For seventy years, Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) has defined how we think about diversification. It tells us that by combining assets with different volatilities and correlations, we can create an efficient frontier — … Continue reading Bitcoin Improves the Efficient Frontier Historically — But Not Reliably or Durably
🌍 The Most Important Conversation You’ll Ever Have
Why the Future of Financial Planning Begins with the Soul Recently, a valued member of our community wrote to say that while he respected our work, he felt the Academy had “departed from holistic financial advice toward a more spiritual and altruistic purpose.” He wished us well but chose to step away, explaining that his … Continue reading 🌍 The Most Important Conversation You’ll Ever Have
🌌 The Six Invisible Laws Every Holistic Wealth Planner Should Know
— How to work with energy, ethics, and timing in the Aquarian Age of Empowerment In the world of holistic wealth planning, numbers and strategies matter — but energy, intention, and alignment matter more. The best planners don’t just design financial blueprints; they harmonise with deeper laws that govern all creation. These laws are not … Continue reading 🌌 The Six Invisible Laws Every Holistic Wealth Planner Should Know
Reframing Wealth: What Human Capital Teaches Us About Growth and Equality
In the pursuit of prosperity, policymakers have long debated the balance between growth and fairness. Yet a seminal study by Jean-Marie Viaene and Itzhak Zilcha — “Human Capital Formation, Income Inequality and Growth” (CESifo, 2001) — offers a powerful reminder: the true engine of both progress and equality is education, not capital. Their model, built … Continue reading Reframing Wealth: What Human Capital Teaches Us About Growth and Equality
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