Regulators showed their teeth in 2025. So why does the harm keep repeating — and how can 2026 be different? At first glance, 2025 looked like a turning point. Headlines spoke of regulators “showing their teeth”.Large institutions were fined.Language hardened.Enforcement totals rose. And yet, when we step back and look at the violations data, a … Continue reading 2026 is where professionals step out of the risk-chain.
Tag: finance
Human Capital First:
Why Total Wealth Planning Is the Future of Financial Planning For decades, financial planning has focused on allocating money. But the evidence is clear:money does not create wealth — people do. A peer-reviewed academic study, Human Capital: The Tool for Economic Growth and Development, reinforces a truth that sits at the very heart of the … Continue reading Human Capital First:
From Human Capital to Human Capability
Why Total Wealth Planning Is the Next Evolution of the Profession For decades, financial planning has rested on a deceptively simple assumption:that if people are given the right information and the right products, good outcomes will follow. But reality keeps proving otherwise. Despite ever more sophisticated modelling, ever thicker reports, and ever greater volumes of … Continue reading From Human Capital to Human Capability
Why Aspiration Alone Fails
And What Total Wealth Planners Must Do Instead For decades, policymakers and educators have believed that the key to social mobility lies in raising aspirations. If people can just see a better future, surely they will find a way to reach it. A major UK-based body of economic research tells a more uncomfortable truth. Aspirations … Continue reading Why Aspiration Alone Fails
From Human Capital to Human Flourishing
Why Total Wealth Planning Must Replace Individualised Finance For decades, mainstream economics — and by extension much of financial planning — has rested on a deceptively simple idea: People earn what they are worth because they are productive. This belief, known as human capital theory, is so embedded in modern thinking that it often goes … Continue reading From Human Capital to Human Flourishing
Total Wealth Planning™ Is No Longer a Fringe Idea
“Moving from restricted planning to whole-of-wealth planning isn’t a change of tools —it’s a change of allegiance: from products to people.” Steve ConleyAcademy of Life Planning Why 2026 Is the Year the Profession Must Change By Steve Conley | Academy of Life Planning | December 2025 For more than a decade, the Academy of Life … Continue reading Total Wealth Planning™ Is No Longer a Fringe Idea
When Flexibility Becomes Forgetting: Removing Annual Suitability
Why Removing Annual Suitability Risks Burying the UK’s Fee-for-No-Service Reckoning By Steve ConleyAcademy of Life Planning A trustworthy regulator does not erase the audit trail when the bill is about to fall due. A quiet proposal with loud consequences The Financial Conduct Authority is consulting on removing the requirement for annual suitability reviews for advisers, … Continue reading When Flexibility Becomes Forgetting: Removing Annual Suitability
💉 “New Blood” or Old Habits? Why a £1 Million Recruitment Drive Risks Solving Yesterday’s Problem
Steve ConleyDecember 15, 2025 The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has recently announced that more than 400 people have expressed interest in its new Pathway to the Profession initiative — a £1 million recruitment campaign designed to attract and nurture new entrants into financial planning. On the surface, this is welcome news. A profession that genuinely … Continue reading 💉 “New Blood” or Old Habits? Why a £1 Million Recruitment Drive Risks Solving Yesterday’s Problem
Human Capital, Finology, and the Human-to-Human Economy
Extending the Vision of Financial Planning 3.0 “AI won’t replace planners. But planners who embrace AI — and truly understand human beings — will replace those who don’t.” Partha Iyengar recently left a comment on LinkedIn that stopped me in my tracks. He celebrated Human Capital and Human-to-Human Connections as the real drivers of progress … Continue reading Human Capital, Finology, and the Human-to-Human Economy
Human Capital: The Forgotten Foundation of Total Wealth
By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning “Investment in human capital is not merely an economic act — it is a declaration of faith in humanity itself.” For generations, the financial world has been fixated on the growth of money — GDP, stock portfolios, property values — while quietly neglecting the deeper force that … Continue reading Human Capital: The Forgotten Foundation of Total Wealth
Academy of Life Planning 