As well as providing a framework to support households in making financial decisions, we think that every household should have a lifetime financial plan that sets out their short, medium and long-term financial goals and how they are going to achieve these. While every household would benefit from this approach, it would be potentially transformative for low and middle-income households.
Although it is assumed that guidance for the mass market will primarily be offered online, there will be occasions when people want human support, particularly for more complex decisions. We propose allowing expert human support to accompany people through the guidance framework, helping them to understand key concepts and available options, while remaining within the guidance rules.
Capturing all of one’s financial details can be a very time-consuming affair and potentially puts people off managing their money. Worse still, people have to repeat this process each time they go to a new service provider. We would therefore also like to see a standardised fact find adopted by the industry, in effect creating a portable fact find that could be used anywhere, including within the proposed guidance framework. This portable fact find would form the basis of the household’s financial plan and should be regularly reviewed to reflect changes in circumstances or financial goals.
David Dalton-Brown is director general of Tisa
