PIMFA
2025/26 research Report SUMMARY
Unlocking Financial Futures: The Advice Benefit
- The perception that financial advice is only for the wealthy no longer resonates. Two-thirds of respondents stated they believe advisers would work with clients under £100,000; and nearly half thought £50,000 was enough. The industry’s average onboarding threshold is much higher - leaving many consumers looking for advice and unsure where to turn.
- Barriers to engagement are rooted in both accessibility and affordability. Of those who reported not having enough money as a reason for not seeking advice, 47% turned to self-directed propositions, whilst a further 50% were not investing at all. Both findings raise concerns around consumer outcomes.
- Financial literacy remains low. More needs to be done to improve consumer understanding and empower individuals so that they get better outcomes, connect more with the industry and do so earlier. Advice delivers measurable benefits, with 91% of advised consumers finding it helpful, yet only 9% of UK adults received regulated advice last year. Early engagement, especially among younger individuals, fosters better financial habits and resilience.
- Regulatory reform is critical and potentially on the horizon. Targeted Support and Simplified Advice will lay the groundwork for firms to be able to engage with consumers at the lower end of the market, but more will need to be done to encourage further engagement.
- Consumer demand is shifting towards one-off, eventdriven advice. Between 2023 and 2025, our data showed a 10% increase in those accessing ‘ad hoc’ advisory services. Demand exists across all wealth brackets, but cost transparency and accessibility remain a barrier.
- Employer-led and hybrid models offer scalable solutions. 58% of respondents who have never taken financial advice would use free, confidential advice provided by an independent third party if offered by their employer. Hybrid models that blend digital tools with human expertise could make advice more accessible and cost-effective.
Do You Trust Us?
- Firms must treat trust as measurable and manageable. Using the trust equation (credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-interest) firms can create structured trust frameworks, set KPIs, align remuneration to trust-building behaviours and gather client feedback to target areas of weakness.
- The industry must focus on earlier engagement. Primary and secondary research shows that trust declines after age 45, just as individuals begin to approach the life stages where advice becomes most valuable. To reverse this trend, firms need to introduce younger clients to advice through low-cost digital models, subscription-based content, and an “incubator” approach designed to build familiarity before wealth accumulates. Greater family involvement during the advice process can further strengthen trust through intergenerational continuity.
- Building and maintaining trust requires a shift in tone from regulators and the media. The FCA’s stated objective is to improve trust, yet its language frequently amplifies perceptions of industry self-interest. A rebalanced narrative, one that acknowledges the industry’s credibility, reliability and real-world impact would better support this goal. Firms, too, must stop hiding behind compliance barriers and instead cultivate stronger identities, clearer communication and deeper intimacy with clients.
AI: Evolution, Revolution or Devastation?
- Strategy & Implementation of AI in financial advice – Paramount to the success of AI adoption, the identification of the right problem and the right solution begins at this stage.
- Human Intervention – Demand for human interaction remains, especially at ‘moments that matter’. People value accuracy, quality of advice and trust above all which AI cannot deliver on its own. AI is a tool to augment rather than replace the adviser.
- Ethics – Without a strong governance framework to underpin your AI adoption and implementation, both business and client outcomes will suffer as a result.
- Opportunity – Understanding the desired outcome, identifying the right solution and deploying it for the right target market, will enable success with a specific focus on identified opportunities within the fragile decade and the wealth accumulators.
- AI isn’t a one size fits all solution. To achieve positive outcomes for both businesses and clients, firms must identify the AI solution that best fits their strategic vision. Businesses should look to use AI to revolutionise operations, evolve existing skillsets and avoid actions that could lead the industry into devastation.
Company Culture - Who Even Cares?
- Culture has a place as a ‘carrot as well as a stick’, and that it is useless if it lives only on a whiteboard from an executive strategy day. Applying insights around culture for businesses gives them an exciting new framework not just for existing clients, but for potential new clients, new relevance, new relationships and new revenue – ultimately using culture as a beacon for the right behaviour to ensure firms’ resilience for the future.
- Simply resigning to the narrative that ‘culture is amorphous and means different things to different people’ is not action – it is inaction, and people notice.
- When it comes to culture, what you do matters just as much as what you don’t do. A firm’s culture matters even more when things are not going well, or when people are not performing, rather than when everything appears to be working perfectly - it will impact individual’s actions, attitudes and choices.
- There is an interesting example of an ultrahigh- performance organisation that embeds culture in the way they treat each other - The Mercedes F1 team who state that they “blame the process and not the person”. This speaks directly to the interface between culture and performance and serves as a healthy principle to set against firm’s cultural design, implementation and continued application.
