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WAys to work smarter, not later
Stories, frameworks and how-to guides for independent financial advisers — built from real conversations with practitioners running £10m to £500m practices.
Showing 55 articles.
Looking for an FE Analytics alternative? Plan the switch around your client's next review pack
Anthony Marris argues that once a firm has chosen an FE Analytics alternative, the switch should be planned around what clients see: the review pack. He suggests running old and new platforms side by side for a full review cycle, keeping the report's look familiar, checking fund history before cancelling, and exporting the dated evidence behind the firm's CIP, while giving FE fundinfo credit for its long, consistent fund data.
Simpler rules will not mean a lighter file
Every consultation that promises to simplify advice rules is read in firms as a promise of less work. That is usually the wrong inference. Simplification tends to remove prescription and leave the outcome in place, which moves the burden from following a specified process to explaining the one you chose. A firm that has been relying on prescribed steps as its defence has more to rewrite than a firm that already recorded its reasoning. This piece looks at what to prepare for while the shape is still being consulted on, without guessing at the final rules.
The assets outside your proposition are still part of the advice
Most centralised investment propositions describe what the firm recommends. Clients increasingly hold things the firm did not recommend and would not: a workplace scheme in a default fund, a self-directed account, an employer shareholding, sometimes a crypto holding bought years ago. None of it sits inside the proposition, and all of it changes whether the advice is suitable. This piece looks at how to account for assets you do not manage without being drawn into advising on them.
Judge AI suitability report software by whether the client finishes the report knowing why
Anthony Marris argues that AI suitability report software should be judged by the client's experience of the finished report, because Consumer Duty asks firms to show a report is clear enough for the client to act on. He sets out how AI drafting can repeat the patterns that lose clients, and the plain checks a firm can run on a real file before buying: clarity of the recommendation, a readable disadvantages section, sensible length, figures that match the firm's records, and handling of vulnerable clients.
The MPS review asked a question most advice files cannot answer
When the FCA looked at how firms use model portfolio services, the finding that should worry advisers was not about charges. It was that firms could describe the portfolios in detail and could not show why this client was in this model rather than the one next to it. That reasoning is the thing a reviewer tests, and in most files it exists in the adviser's head rather than on paper. This piece sets out what the review implies for an advice firm that outsources to an MPS, and the three places the reasoning usually goes missing.
The best tool for each job stopped being the best answer
For most of the time I have been advising, the sensible way to build a firm's systems was to buy the best available tool for each job. Specialists beat generalists, and the firm that assembled the strongest individual pieces ended up with the strongest whole. That logic has quietly inverted, and the reason is the same one Adam Smith identified in a pin factory: specialisation raises output right up until the cost of coordinating the specialists exceeds what their specialisation gains you. Most advice firms are now on the wrong side of that line.
Most firms have a centralised investment proposition by accident
A centralised investment proposition is meant to be a deliberate framework: how the firm builds portfolios, who they suit, and how that is reviewed. What most small firms actually have is a set of habits that hardened into a default, usually around whatever the founder was comfortable with a decade ago. Both look identical in a client file. Only one survives a question about why it is designed the way it is. This piece looks at the difference between a designed proposition and an inherited one, and the test that tells you which you have.
Looking at CashCalc alternatives? Judge any cashflow tool by the review meeting it creates
Advisers comparing cashflow planning tools such as CashCalc and Voyant mostly meet feature tables, and mature tools look alike on paper. Anthony Marris argues the better test is the review meeting where a client switches on income: whether the client can follow the stress scenarios, whether the adviser can change an assumption live, and whether the tool reuses data the firm already holds. He suggests running one anonymised transition meeting with each shortlisted vendor on the firm's own data.
UK inflation rose to 3.5% in September, five days before the Budget
UK inflation turned back up to 3.5% in September, driven mainly by motor fuels, and the week's market moves were small next to the Budget now five days away. Shares gave back ground, gold cooled by about 2.5%, and the 10-year gilt yield closed Thursday exactly where it closed the Thursday before, which is what a market waiting for a fiscal event looks like rather than one taking a view on it.
Targeted support is live, and a firm that won't apply for it should still record why
Targeted support, set out in the FCA's PS25/22, went live on 6 April 2026. It lets a firm with the new permission offer suggestions designed for groups of consumers with common characteristics. Many IFA firms won't apply, but that decision still needs doing properly: record it, date it and set a review point. It's also worth rereading group client communications with the new boundary in mind, since whether a message is information, targeted support or advice depends on its wording, and checking where prospects the firm can't serve are signposted.
A small firm's close client relationships only count once they are written down
Small advice firms have long answered larger ones with the same claim: we know our clients. Eliot Jones argues the claim still holds, but under Consumer Duty's consumer understanding and consumer support outcomes it only counts when the knowledge is written down. Using Plato's Phaedrus, where writing is feared as the enemy of memory, he suggests small firms now face the reverse problem. What is remembered but never recorded is invisible to the regulator, to colleagues and to anyone taking on the client book, and a short habit of recording what matters changes that.
An investment philosophy should be able to reject a fund people like
In the build order for a centralised investment proposition, the investment philosophy comes before the solution set for a reason: it is the rule the committee uses to decide what gets in. A philosophy that only states general beliefs can't settle a fund debate, so the same arguments return at every meeting. This piece sets out the questions a philosophy has to answer, shows the difference between a vague answer and a usable one, and offers a simple test: could your philosophy have said no to the last fund proposed?
One timed client file says more about a research tool than a demo ever will
Research tools for advisers are usually compared on features and depth of data. Anthony Marris argues that two other numbers matter more and are rarely seen together: the full cost per adviser once every module on the invoice is counted, and the paraplanner time spent making the research tool, the CRM and the proposal agree. The piece recognises where deep fund history earns its place, and sets out a one-morning test on a single anonymised client file that any firm can run on its current tool and any alternative.
UK output grew 0.7% in the three months to August as technology shares fell worldwide
UK output grew 0.7% in the three months to August and 0.1% in the month itself, and the FTSE 100 closed 1.07% higher on Thursday, while US consumer price inflation picked up to 3.7% in September and Japanese shares fell about 6.7% over the week. For advisers the week turns on rate expectations rather than company news: stronger UK growth alongside 3.1% inflation makes a November cut harder to argue for, while falling gilt and Treasury yields gave bond funds their better week of the autumn.
Flagging vulnerable clients is the start; the Consumer Duty test is whether their outcomes match everyone else's
FG21/1 sets out four areas of action for treating vulnerable customers fairly, and identification is only one strand. The guidance also expects firms to monitor and evaluate, including regularly reviewing management information on the outcomes vulnerable customers receive. The FCA's March 2025 review found outcomes monitoring was still an area for improvement. A count of flagged clients measures recording, not outcomes. The practical step is to split two measures the firm already tracks, such as reviews completed on time and complaints, by the vulnerability flag and explain any gap.
The annual review is still run as a valuation meeting, long after its purpose changed
For a generation the annual review was built around the portfolio: the platform statement, performance, and a closing question about whether anything had changed. Eliot Jones argues that the ritual has outlived its purpose. Since Consumer Duty came into force in July 2023, with fair value set out in PRIN 2A, the review has to show that the client received the service they paid for. He sets out the running order that follows from that, where the portfolio conversation now sits, and why habit rather than knowledge keeps the old shape in place.
Rebuild the cost stack before you defend an in-house model portfolio
The margin argument for running model portfolios in-house is easy to make and rarely re-tested. A fair comparison with an outsourced MPS needs the full cost of being an investment manager: research capability, data licences, committee time, permissions, trading and the wider compliance scope. Where a firm manufactures its own solution, the FCA's price and value rules in PRIN 2A.4 require it to assess fair value, which makes the exercise hard to avoid. This piece sets out how to build the stack honestly and what to do with the answer.
Before an AI note-taker joins your client meetings, find out where the recording is stored
AI note-takers can turn a half-hour meeting write-up into a five-minute review, which is why they are often the first AI tool an advice firm adopts. Anthony Marris looks at the question that tends to get skipped: where the recording is stored. Client meetings hold highly sensitive personal data, and tools that keep recordings outside the UK bring UK GDPR transfer rules into play. The piece covers what to ask a supplier, what the firm's own agreements and retention policy should say, and why the note still needs a careful read.
Gilt yields rose again as the Bank of England said bond markets now lean more on investors who borrow
The UK 10-year gilt yield closed at 5.48% as at Thursday 8 October close, up 0.08 percentage points on the week, while the Bank of England's Governor used a speech in Istanbul to say government bond markets now lean more on investors who borrow to take positions, and that those positions can be unwound quickly. Equities were firmer, with the S&P 500 up 1.54% on the week and the FTSE 100 a little lower on the day, oil rose and gold gave back some of its recent gains, and the FCA opened a consultation that would put a 90 day notice period on funds holding property and infrastructure.
Your ongoing advice fee belongs in the fair value assessment alongside the fund panel
The Consumer Duty's price and value outcome covers services as well as products (PRIN 2A.1.4G), so an IFA firm's own ongoing advice fee needs a value assessment, not only the funds on its panel. PRIN 2A.4.8R requires the assessment to consider the benefits, any limitations, the expected total price including regular charges, and vulnerability in the target market. PRIN 2A.4.20R stops a firm relying on the absence of complaints. The practical test is the group of clients paying an ongoing fee who haven't received the service: list them, cost them in pounds and record what the firm has done.
Hours at the desk have become a poor measure of how thorough an adviser is
Eliot Jones argues that the hours an adviser spends at the desk were once a fair measure of thoroughness, because gathering fund data was slow and made up most of the work. That proxy was formed when information was scarce, and it has outlived those conditions. Drawing on C. Northcote Parkinson's 1955 observation that work expands to fill the time available, he suggests firms measure how much preparation time goes on assembling information and how much on judgement, and treat the answer as a guide to where adviser capacity is really going.
Switching on income is the moment a client should be re-segmented
A client who starts taking income from a pension is exposed to risks a saver with the same attitude to risk score does not face, above all the order in which returns arrive. A centralised retirement proposition only works if the move into drawdown is treated as a documented event: the client is re-segmented, a withdrawal approach is chosen and recorded, and the review cadence changes. This piece sets out what that trigger should capture and why a quiet rebalance is not enough.
Let AI write the suitability report's wording, and keep every fact tied to your own records
AI tools can draft a suitability report in minutes, and they can also invent a fund, a KIID date or a regulatory reference that reads perfectly well. Anthony Marris argues the safe line is simple: the model writes the wording, and every fact comes from the firm's own records. The piece explains where drafting saves real time, why facts and PROD conclusions stay with the firm, why vulnerable-client cases stay human-first, and the single test to put to any drafting tool before trusting its output.
UK 30-year gilt yields reached 6% for the first time since 1998
Long-dated UK borrowing costs reached a level last seen in February 1998 on Thursday, as a global bond selloff lifted the 30-year gilt yield to 6% and the 10-year gilt to 5.52%, while the FTSE 100 ended the week about 2.4% lower. For clients that shows up as lower valuations on the gilts and bond funds they already hold, more income on new money and annuity quotes, and a housing backdrop that Nationwide says has already cooled to 0.8% annual price growth.
Returned suitability reports are the cheapest management information a small advice firm has
Suitability reports that come back from file checking are usually treated as one adviser's slip, fixed and forgotten. Eliot Jones argues, borrowing Deming's old point about inspection, that checking catches errors without preventing them, and that the returned file is some of the most useful management information a small advice firm has. Logging every return for a quarter, with one line on why, tends to show a short list of repeating reasons. Each can be fixed once, in the fact-find, the report structure or the checking notes, with one person owning the log.
Judge every tool in your advice firm by what you would get back if you left
Most advice firms choose software on the way in: the demo, the trial, the price. Anthony Marris argues the more useful question comes first. If we left this tool, what would we get back, and in what shape? The tools that are hard to leave end up running the firm, and for an advice business the export is part of its record keeping. The piece sets out what different kinds of export allow, the plain questions to put to a supplier before signing, and why running fewer systems makes the question matter more.
Gilt yields climb again as rate-rise talk returns on both sides of the Atlantic
UK and US government bond yields rose again this week as higher oil prices and a Federal Reserve rate rise revived talk of further increases, with three Bank of England members already voting for one. The FTSE 100 fell 1.3% over the week, with its oil majors softening the fall, while domestic UK shares felt more of the strain as growth cooled and costs rose.
The Consumer Duty board report: describing activity is not evidence
The annual board report on retail customer outcomes is the shortest document in a firm's Consumer Duty file and the hardest one to write well. Most reports describe what the firm did. A board cannot make a decision from a description. Michael Fasosin sets out the difference between activity and evidence, a four column shape that forces the distinction, and the three metrics that carry the most weight in a small advice firm. The point is not a longer report. It is a shorter one that a new non executive could read cold and act on.
The CIP review that finds nothing: what to test beyond fund level tolerances
Annual centralised investment proposition reviews have a habit of confirming the proposition. Matthew Hull argues that is a function of what gets tested: a fund level screen can only establish that nothing has broken. The questions that change a decision are about dispersion, between clients placed in the same model at different times, between holdings and the risk profile on file, and across a model range that is often narrower in practice than on paper. The piece sets out four tests, a worked example, and what each finding should prompt.
Adviser capacity leaks through the review calendar, not the client count
Firms that describe themselves as at capacity usually assume the answer is another adviser or fewer clients. Eliot Jones argues the constraint is more often the shape of the review calendar. Because clients arrive in bursts, review anniversaries cluster into peaks nobody designed, and those peaks are where overruns, late reports and weekend working live. The piece works through the arithmetic for a 240 client firm, sets out how to level a calendar without unsettling anybody, and explains why the fix holds rather than drifting back.
Where AI earns its place in an advice firm, and where it does not
Most conversations about AI in advice firms start with which tool to buy, and end in disappointment. Anthony Marris proposes a different filter: how cheaply can a human check the output. Where a person can verify a draft in seconds because they already hold the source, the tool saves real time. Where verifying the answer means redoing the work, it saves none and adds risk. The piece applies that test to eight jobs in a typical planning business, and explains why the structured, boring integration work still matters more than the model.
FE fundinfo alternative for UK IFAs: a WAy to compare in 2026
FE fundinfo is the umbrella brand sitting over the FE adviser-side tools UK IFAs know best, including FE Analytics, CashCalc, FE Risk Profiler and the rest. In 2026 it remains the most-recognised name in adviser analytics. The trade-off is a multi-module commercial model that adds up, a UI built across two decades, and a CRM-side integration story that still leans on CSV exports. Wealth Analytica is the newer end-to-end alternative: fact-find through proposal in one platform, live Intelliflo sync, institutional-grade data, flat £149.99 per user per month. This page sets out where each tool leads, what switching looks like, and which firm should pick which.
AI in advice — what works, what doesn't, in a UK IFA firm
AI tools genuinely help UK IFA firms in five specific places: meeting notes capture, fact-find data extraction, first-pass suitability drafting, fund research summaries and client comms drafting. Each comes with a specific failure mode the firm has to control — hallucinated funds, model-invented FCA references, advice-language drift, mis-calibrated vulnerability handling. The FCA expects the firm to remain accountable for every output. The right way to use AI in an IFA workflow is as adviser-in-the-loop assistance against the firm's real data, not autonomous generation. This pillar article covers each use case with what it does well, what it gets wrong, and the controls that make it safe.
What is a centralised investment proposition (CIP)? A 2026 guide for UK IFAs
A centralised investment proposition (CIP) is a documented, firm-wide framework that sets out how an IFA firm researches, selects, constructs, monitors and reviews the investment solutions it recommends to clients within defined client segments. The FCA expects firms that operate a CIP to evidence that the solutions placed into clients remain suitable on an ongoing basis, not just at the point of sale. A typical CIP names the investment philosophy, the client segments it serves, the solutions used (model portfolios, multi-asset funds, DFM mandates), the governance process, the review cadence and the documentation that supports each step.
Targeted Support — the FCA's new April 2026 regime for UK IFAs
Targeted Support is a new FCA permission, live 6 April 2026, that lets firms make a "ready-made suggestion" to a consumer based on limited information about a group that consumer belongs to, without triggering the full personal-recommendation regime. It sits between guidance and simplified advice and is the central output of the Advice Guidance Boundary Review. To use it, an authorised firm files a Variation of Permission with the FCA, designs each Targeted Support scenario against a defined consumer segment, and evidences good outcomes under the Consumer Duty. Most IFA firms wont apply. The firms that will are those wanting to engage clients sitting on uninvested cash, or to triage prospective clients who cant yet justify full advice.
Ongoing service review under Consumer Duty — agenda and file note for UK IFAs
A defensible annual review under Consumer Duty covers seven things: confirmation of client circumstances, reconfirmation of objectives, reconfirmation of attitude to risk and capacity for loss, review of the portfolio against segment design intent, vulnerability check, fair-value confirmation of the service against the fee, and agreed actions with the next review trigger. The output is a file note that demonstrates the service was delivered, the duty's four outcomes were considered, and the ongoing fee was earned. Firms that pass Consumer Duty supervisory scrutiny have wired this into a repeatable process rather than treating each review as a bespoke event.
In-house CIP vs outsourced DFM — a decision framework for UK IFA firms
The honest answer is that most IFA firms under thirty advisers should outsource the investment-management work to a DFM-run MPS and keep advice in-house. The cost of running genuine in-house investment management — research capacity, due-diligence licences, governance overhead, regulatory permissions — exceeds what most firms can recover from the additional margin. The exceptions are firms with genuine investment-specialist depth, firms competing on a differentiated investment story, and firms above a scale where the fixed cost of investment management amortises across enough AUM. This piece is the framework for deciding which side you're on.
How to write a suitability report — a structured approach for UK IFAs (2026)
A defensible UK suitability report covers ten things in this order: scope of advice, client circumstances, objectives and priorities, attitude to risk, capacity for loss (separately from ATR), the recommendation, the reasoning, costs and alternatives considered, disadvantages and risks, and the ongoing service. COBS 9.4 sets the regulatory floor; Consumer Duty raises the bar by requiring the report to demonstrate genuine consumer understanding rather than legal compliance alone. The most common compliance rejection reasons are conflating ATR with capacity for loss, vague objective statements, and reasoning that explains the firm's CIP rather than the individual client.
How to identify a vulnerable client — practical FCA-aligned guide for UK IFAs
Identifying vulnerable clients well is partly a question of process and partly a question of skill. The process bit is the easier half: at every meaningful client interaction the firm runs through the four FCA-defined drivers — health, life events, resilience, capability — asks open questions that surface them, records the answers in a structured way in the client record, and reviews the picture annually. The skill bit is the harder half: knowing what to look for, hearing what's not said, distinguishing a transient life event from an enduring vulnerability, and adapting the service without being patronising. This piece is the practical guide for partners and paraplanners doing the work, anchored in FG21/1 and the FCA-ICO joint guidance on vulnerability data.
How to build a CIP — a seven-step process for UK IFA firms
Build a centralised investment proposition in this order: define your client segments, set the investment philosophy, pick the solution set per segment, write the research and due-diligence process, stand up the governance committee, wire in the Consumer Duty overlay, then test the whole thing against your existing book before launching. Skipping the order is the most common reason firms end up rewriting their CIP within twelve months. Allow eight to twelve weeks of effort across a six-adviser firm; the work is concentrated, not continuous.
FCA shoehorning and CIPs — what the regulator looks for in 2026
Shoehorning is the FCA's term for placing clients into a centralised investment proposition that doesn't fit their individual circumstances, in order to keep the firm's operations standardised. The concern was first set out in TR16/1 in 2016 and has been sharpened by Consumer Duty and the FCA's later supervisory work. A defensible CIP is one where the segments are real, the exception process is used, the suitability evidence is at the client level rather than the segment level, and the firm can demonstrate the CIP works for the clients in it — not the other way round.
CP26/10 — simplifying pensions and investment advice rules: an IFA explainer
CP26/10 is the FCA's consultation paper on simplifying the personal-recommendation regime for straightforward investment and pension decisions. It runs in parallel with the Targeted Support rules that go live on 6 April 2026. CP26/10 proposes a refreshed Simplified Advice service: a personal recommendation, narrower in scope, with a proportionate suitability process, designed for consumers with simpler needs who can't justify the cost of full holistic advice. For IFA firms the consultation matters because Simplified Advice may eventually be the regime under which they serve the next generation of lower-AUM clients — and because the proposals will influence what good suitability looks like across the rest of the advice spectrum.
Consumer Duty year 2 — outcomes monitoring for UK IFAs
Consumer Duty year 2 is the FCA's evidence year. Firms that completed the July 2024 implementation are now expected to show — with data, worked examples, and a board-level annual report — that the products and services they recommend continue to produce good outcomes for the customers they were designed for. Outcomes monitoring is the discipline that produces that evidence: agreeing the metrics that show whether each of the four outcomes (products and services, price and value, consumer understanding, consumer support) is being met for each defined target market, gathering the data, escalating where outcomes fall short, and signing the lot off at board level. Most firms have it; most firms don't have it in a form that would survive an FCA s.166.
Consumer Duty for MPS firms — the FCA's multi-firm review and what it means for IFAs
The FCA's August 2024 multi-firm review of Model Portfolio Services found three recurring gaps in Consumer Duty implementation: target-market drift between MPS providers and advising firms, fair-value assessments run layer-by-layer instead of across the chain, and patchy distribution-chain information flow. IFAs using third-party MPS need to refresh panel due diligence to include each manufacturer's Consumer Duty disclosures, reconcile their client segmentation against each portfolio's target market, and run a chain-wide fair-value picture covering MPS fee, ongoing fee, platform fee and underlying OCFs. The piece sets out what the review found and the three concrete actions defensible inside an annual board cycle.
Consumer Duty fair value assessment template — UK IFA worked example
A defensible fair value assessment under the Consumer Duty's price-and-value outcome answers three questions for each thing the consumer pays for: what does it actually cost them all-in, what specifically do they get in return, and is that value reasonable compared with the alternatives. For an IFA firm that means running the assessment on the products on the panel and on the firm's own ongoing service — the part most firms forget. This piece walks through a template that works, a worked example for a £500,000 client on a 0.75% ongoing fee, and the case-level discipline the FCA is asking firms to demonstrate.
Centralised retirement proposition (CRP) and decumulation strategy — UK IFA guide
A centralised retirement proposition (CRP) is a documented, firm-wide framework that sets out how the firm advises clients drawing income from their pension or other invested assets. It differs from a CIP because the risks differ: sequence-of-returns risk, longevity, withdrawal-rate sustainability and the interaction between guaranteed and flexible income all need explicit treatment. The FCA's drawdown thematic findings make clear that firms advising in decumulation need a proposition designed for that phase rather than an accumulation CIP with a drawdown wrapper. This piece covers definition, FCA expectations and the practical strategy choices that sit inside a CRP.
AI suitability report writing for UK advisers — what's safe, what's not
AI tools can draft a suitability report in two minutes. They can also confidently cite a fund that doesn't exist, misquote a PROD rule, or write a paragraph that reads like advice. For a UK IFA, the regulated-advice responsibility sits with the named adviser and the firm — not with the model. The right way to use AI in suitability drafting is as a structured-draft assistant against your firm's real fact-find data, with the adviser reviewing every paragraph before sign-off. This piece explains what's safe, what's not, what the FCA expects, and how Wealth Analytica draws the line.
FE Analytics: a WAy to evaluate your adviser toolkit in 2026
FE Analytics has been the default adviser-side analytics tool in the UK market for nearly two decades. In 2026 it remains the deepest fund-history dataset and the strongest brand inside compliance functions, with the trade-off of a UI that pre-dates the modern web stack and quotation-led pricing that adds up once you've bolted on the modules a typical firm needs. This is a long-form, sourced review by the team building an alternative. We're not impartial, but we are factual.
Stop rekeying client data: the hidden cost in every UK IFA firm
The 2023 Scottish Widows Paraplanner Survey found 83% of UK paraplanners say their technology could be improved, up from 64% in the prior survey, with manual rekeying between systems repeatedly named as the top friction. In firms we've worked with, that translates to a meaningful share of the paraplanner's working week spent moving client data between Intelliflo, FE Analytics, Voyant and a separate proposal tool. This is what the fragmentation tax looks like in its purest form, and the firms that have stopped paying it run tighter operations on smaller technology budgets than the firms still rekeying.
Why the most successful IFAs are working fewer hours (and growing AUM faster)
Across UK IFA customer conversations over the past two years, a pattern shows up consistently: the firms growing AUM fastest are not the ones working longer hours. They're the ones who've stopped treating research, rekeying, and proposal assembly as RI work. The judgement bit, the synthesis, the recommendation, the client relationship, stays with the RI. The mechanical bit moves to the platform. The hours that come back go into more client meetings, faster response times, and the second-order growth that compounds: retention up, referrals up, AUM up at 20–30% annually instead of 12–15%. This piece walks through what that pattern looks like in practice and what changes in a firm's week to make it possible.
Client experience in the Consumer Duty era — what changed and what's worth doing
Client experience used to be a soft marketing word. Under Consumer Duty's consumer-support and consumer-understanding outcomes, it's now an obligation the firm has to evidence with data — response times, comprehension checks, vulnerable-client adaptations, ongoing-review completion against schedule. The firms doing this well in 2026 aren't the ones with the prettiest client portals. They're the ones who've made the experience legible to the regulator and useful to the client at the same time. This piece looks at what's actually changed under Consumer Duty's year-2 supervision, where the evidence load lands, and what a working client-experience stack looks like inside a UK IFA firm.
From overwhelmed to optimised — recovering RI capacity without hiring
The capacity wall most UK IFA firms hit at 180–220 clients per RI is the point at which the rekeying, switching, and report-building load tips over from background noise to dominant cost. Firms running an integrated stack typically recover 8–12 hours per RI per week from that load, which translates into either materially more client-facing time at constant capacity, or 25–40% more clients per RI over a 12–18 month window. The honest framing: recover the hours you're losing to the fragmentation tax and put them somewhere that grows the firm. "Double your capacity" is the wrong promise.
Beyond traditional portfolios — tracking ETFs to crypto in a single client view
UK IFAs in 2026 are advising on a client portfolio that no longer fits inside one platform. ETFs sit alongside managed funds. Direct shares held on Hargreaves or AJ Bell sit alongside the SIPP. Cryptoassets — restricted-mass-market under FCA <a href="https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/policy-statements/ps23-6-financial-promotion-rules-cryptoassets">FG23/3</a> and the financial-promotions regime — sit somewhere none of the firm's systems can see. The real challenge is seeing the client's whole position. Pick the right ETF, yes, but the recommendation only works if it fits the rest of the picture, and most UK IFA systems cannot see the rest of the picture. This piece looks at where alternative wrappers fit, what the FCA expects on cryptoasset interactions, and how to get the consolidated view without four logins per client.
The Hidden Tax of Fragmented Systems — why IFAs need one platform to scale
The fragmentation tax is what your firm pays, in adviser hours and error rate and compliance exposure and growth capacity, to run five or six disconnected systems that should be one. In our work with UK IFA firms, the typical RI loses 8 to 12 hours a week to rekeying, system-switching, reconciliation, and ad-hoc reporting. For a six-RI firm at a notional £250 hourly cost, that's £625,000 to £940,000 of capacity disappearing every year before a single client benefits. The fix is killing the fragmentation by running on a platform that owns the lead-to-proposal pipeline end to end. Better integration merely reconnects the problem.
The UK IFA compliance load in 2026 — what's actually changed
The compliance load on UK IFAs in 2026 is layered. The second-year evidence cycle for Consumer Duty collides with the Advice/Guidance Boundary Review, the new Targeted Support regime that went live on 6 April 2026, and the CP26/10 consultation on simplifying the advice rules. The headline change is that the board-level annual outcomes report is now an audited expectation rather than a first attempt, target-market and fair-value evidence has to be produced and not just promised, and Targeted Support has carved out a new regulated activity that sits between guidance and advice. This is what's changed, and what your firm should be doing about each of the four pieces.
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Comparisons
We compare Wealth Analytica with the established names in UK IFA software — FE Analytics, FE fundinfo, Morningstar Adviser Workstation. The comparisons are commercial content, dated, sourced and held to a no-disparagement rule. The Comparisons hub has the full list.
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