63% would pay for ‘personalised’ financial guidance

The study found that 48% of consumers would pay an upfront fee of £250 for personalised guidance and 27% would be ‘comfortable’ spending £500.

About 15% would be willing to pay £1,000 but only a few per cent were willing to pay £2,500.

The report, by savings provider trade body TISA and EY Seren (EY’s customer research arm), suggests an appetite by consumers to pay for limited personalised financial guidance.

Personalised guidance – likely delivered by providers – would provide some recommendations but stop short of providing full Financial Planning advice. 

Source: TISA / EY Seren

TISA wants the FCA to open the door to personalised guidance to give millions more investors a chance to receive financial advice support of some kind.

Consumers told researchers they would be willing to pay for support if it made saving and investment decisions easier.

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TISA says the creation of new personalised financial guidance rules would complement existing financial advice services, not replace them. 

TISA says that the regulatory environment has made it increasingly challenging for providers to offer personalised financial support.  

The trade body and EY says that financial advice would be more accessible if regulation allowed access to more varied forms of advice and guidance services aimed at lower budgets. 

Under the proposals from TISA, financial services providers would be able to offer simplified advice to potentially bridge the gap between advice and information.  

TISA says the volume of information available often leads consumer to feel overwhelmed and suffer “paralysis and inertia” on what to do with their savings. 

According to the findings, customers see high-quality, full financial advice as “expensive but valuable.” 

A common perception was that paid-for financial support was ‘not for someone like me’, but for those with significant sums or with a significant decision to make such as buying their first property, TISA said. 

One respondent said: “I’ve always thought in 10 years when my salary is higher, then I would speak to someone, it would cost money, but you’d recoup the money.” 

TISA believes there is a big pool of potential new savers and investors willing to pay for support services but unable to afford full Financial Planning advice. 

TISA wants the FCA to open the door to more forms of support and guidance services, ranging from fully-fledged, high-quality advice to personalised guidance to more helpful information. 

Prakash Chandramohan, strategic policy director at TISA, said: “The FCA, Government and industry need to build a sustainable framework and create a future where consumers have access to a wider range of support initiatives to make saving and investment decisions – from fully-fledged, high-quality advice to personalised guidance to more helpful information.  

“This would help millions more consumers get the type of support they need. It would bring a substantial new customer base to financial services providers, including advisers. Personalised support and guidance would give people greater confidence and mean better outcomes for the many. In turn, it would help highlight to people when they need advice.”

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