The UK’s targeted support framework has now gone live, marking an important step in addressing the advice gap and widening access to financial guidance.
The intention is clear. To allow firms, including advisers, to engage earlier without immediately moving into full regulated advice.
The question now is how this will translate into day-to-day advisory practice.
Early indications suggest that adoption by advisers may take time.
“Only a regulator could come up with a term like targeted support”
Structural shifts in advice delivery, particularly those involving compliance considerations, tend to evolve gradually rather than overnight.
The practical implications are more immediate.
Many advisers will recognise the challenge of balancing regulatory requirements with client comfort.
A new client meeting can quickly move into a detailed fact-find, covering multiple aspects of personal and financial information.
While necessary, it can feel to the client like a significant step early in the relationship.
In practice, not all clients are ready for that level of disclosure at the outset.
They want to understand who they are dealing with. They want to build confidence in the adviser before committing to a full advisory process.
A better way to start
Targeted support offers a more natural starting point.
It allows for an initial stage of engagement — a conversation that provides direction without immediately moving into full advice.
Handled well, this can lead to a more progressive client journey.
An initial discussion establishes rapport and understanding. Over time, this develops into more detailed planning as the client becomes more comfortable.
From a business perspective, this has clear advantages.
It can improve client engagement, increase conversion rates, and lead to more durable long-term relationships.
It also creates a clearer pathway from initial contact through to full advice, rather than relying on a single, fully committed step at the outset.
There are also implications for how advisory businesses are viewed in a consolidating market.
Acquirers are increasingly focused on the quality and sustainability of client relationships, as well as the consistency of advice processes.
Where firms rely heavily on front-loaded advice models, there can be greater scrutiny around whether those processes have been consistently applied and whether they may give rise to future client complaints.
A more phased approach may offer a different profile.
By engaging clients initially at a targeted level, and progressing into full advice over time, firms may develop relationships that are both more natural and more robust.
This can create a more consistent and repeatable model of client engagement, which is often attractive from an acquisition perspective.
Issue of cost
There is also a more uncomfortable point worth addressing.
For many clients, the real barrier to engaging with financial advice is not complexity. It is cost.
There was a time when commission-based structures were simply how the market worked.
Pensions and regular savings plans provided a natural starting point, and clients did not see advice as something that required a separate upfront payment.
Today, the industry has moved towards fee-based advice, often presented as the preferred approach.
In principle, that brings transparency. In practice, it can also create hesitation.
Many clients are not willing to commit to paying a fee at the outset, particularly before they have built confidence in the adviser.
Faced with that decision, a significant number choose to wait — or do nothing at all. That is the reality.
Set against this, targeted support creates an opportunity to approach engagement differently.
It allows a relationship to begin with a lighter touch. Trust can develop first. More structured advice can follow.
This is not about returning to past models. But it does raise a simple question.
If the objective is to bring more people into advice, then the way advice is introduced — including how it is paid for — needs to reflect how clients actually behave, not how the industry believes they should behave.
None of this suggests that the UK market will change overnight.
But targeted support introduces an additional layer of flexibility.
The opportunity now is to consider how that flexibility can be used — not simply to meet regulatory requirements, but to improve how clients experience financial advice from the very first interaction.
Finally, one cannot help but reflect on the language itself. Only a regulator could come up with a term like targeted support.
At its heart, this is about something much simpler — making financial advice accessible to the person in the street, without them feeling they have to learn a new language just to engage with it.
Perhaps that, in itself, says something about how the industry has evolved — and where it now needs to adjust.
Brian Harrison Spence is the founding partner of HSP Consulting
