Simon Lambert

So we're asking a lot of people in order to do that.

And I think there was hope that the market would sort of step in a bit more than it has done, that the financial services industry would step in a bit more than it has done.

And it hasn't really.

Now, what we have also seen in April of this year was the launch of something called targeted support.

And targeted support is aiming to try to bridge this gap between, you know, financial advice and just going it alone.

And means that it's almost like the kind of it's described a little bit of as like the Amazon, you know, people like you also bought this kind of thing.

It means that banks, financial services firms, investment firms, investment platforms, you know, all of those people can try to do a little bit more to help customers without worrying that they're going to get pulled up by the FCA.

And the FCA has indicated that it wants people to help people more.

So maybe this so-called advice gap that we've got is going to be slightly solved.

But it is a tall order to ask people to do this.

But then I also think that people need to look at whether it is worth them paying for financial advice.

And I know that it will feel very expensive to most people.

Thousands of pounds out of their limited pot that they've got to survive on for retirement.

But time and time again, financial planners, financial advisors produce evidence that shows that the value of that advice outweighs the cost of it.

You know, the lifetime value of it substantially outweighs the cost of it.

What we're also seeing now is more people interested in taking out annuities, which is what people used to have to do before the pension freedoms.

So an annuity is a financial product that provides you with an income for the rest of your life.

annuities are priced off guilt yields guilt yields were absolutely on the floor after the financial crisis and so annuities were offering a very bad deal people also didn't shop around so they were getting a bad deal on the bad deal and people didn't like them because it's a bit of a lottery the wrong way round because if you die early you've spent all that money on an annuity and you might not even get the money back that you spent on it in terms of retirement income and then it's lost it's

Whereas the idea of keeping their money invested and then, you know, if they died early and they hadn't used all of it, it can be passed on to their family sounds a lot more attractive.

Now, on the flip side, of course, you could live a really long time and you could get much more out of your annuity than it ever cost you.