The FCA has announced the establishment of a Financial Advice Working Group (Working Group), as recommended in the final report on the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR). The FCA has also published the terms of reference of the Working Group. These state that the group will be responsible for taking forward the three recommendations assigned to it by the FAMR, which are:
- recommendation 12: the Working Group should work with employer groups to develop a guide on the top ten ways to support employees’ financial health, and devise a strategy for rolling this out. It should align the timing of this with the FCA and the Pensions Regulator joint factsheet for employers and trustees, which is due to be published in early 2017;
- recommendation 17: the Working Group should publish a shortlist of potential new terms to describe ‘guidance’ and ‘advice’ by Q3/Q4 2016; and
- recommendation 18: the Working Group should lead a task force formed of interested stakeholders to design a set of rules of thumb and nudges with the aim of increasing consumer engagement. The Working Group should consider the crucial life stages at which these nudges and rules of thumb could be delivered and complete initial testing of these by Q1 2017.
The Working Group may commission such research as it considers necessary in order to take forward this work and should engage regularly with the FCA and HM Treasury and consult these organisations regarding the work it carries out.
Members of the Working Group, which is chaired by Nick Prettejohn, have been selected on the basis of their expertise and interest in advice and guidance, and also their ability to attend meetings and contribute to its work. Members include a selection of consumer and industry experts from the FAMR Expert Advisory Panel, the Financial Services Consumer Panel, the FCA Smaller Business Practitioner Panel, and the FCA Practitioner Panel.
View Financial Advice Working Group established following FAMR, 20 June 2016
