News & Updates

There are good reasons to be optimistic that Targeted Support will effectively serve those with enough assets or complexity to benefit from financial advice, but not enough to make traditional advice economically viable.

In communicating about investing, as with anything else, there’s a world of difference between hearing some information, and something really speaking to you.

Working out the level of secure income to purchase with a pension pot used to be primarily the job of the people setting annuity rates. Now it’s primarily the job of the pensioner.

Owning your home gives you greater capacity to take investment risk than someone in the same situation who doesn’t own a home. Understanding this – and acting on it – can be behaviourally challenging. But ignoring it can be extremely costly.

The difference between the risk an investor is willing to take and the risk they should take isn’t academic – it’s the difference between box-ticking and delivering truly suitable solutions.

The FCA’s targeted support framework is a much-needed and well-intentioned way of closing the advice gap. But unless it accounts for behavioural differences between investors, it risks offering solutions that are only superficially suitable.

Every advisory firm knows the importance of treating their customers fairly. They also know that treating ‘vulnerable customers’ fairly requires special care. What’s not so clear is what this means in practice.

The FCA thematic review requires advisers to improve standards to demonstrate the suitability of retirement income recommendations. Oxford Risk launches Retirement Income Suitability solution to support advisers and wealth managers with this.

Lifestyle funds were created with investor behaviours firmly in view. However, in light of (almost decade-old) changes to pensions legislation and advances in our understanding of what really helps investors, the particular view of investor behaviour they reflect now looks very dated.

Advisers and wealth managers often ask about the consistency of Oxford Risk's risk ratings over time. We have produced a report to demonstrate the stability of our risk mapping solution over time.