The UK wealth management business sets the bar of “wealth” too low and misleads the mass-affluent into believing they are what they are not- wealthy. In doing so, they offer products and services which are out of their customers financial reach, selling them on the vanity of people’s aspirations. Though this word is less often used today, wealth management is largely “snobbery”. Collins describes a snob as

a person who strives to associate with those of higher social status and who behaves condescendingly to others

Appealing to the innate snobbery in many of us , is a quick way to our hearts , minds and wallets. It is the essence of today’s politics and underpins the personal financial agenda that has prevailed through the past 13 years. We can all aspire to “wealth” and we buy into a vision of social and financial freedom which is beyond us, in the hope that in time we will grow into it.

However, this misguided optimism has left behind the simple products and services on which the financial security of those in later life has been built. The simple business of buying a home has been replaced by a desire for a portfolio of buy-to-let properties, the concept of life insurance has been replaced by complex Inheritance Tax mitigation schemes and pensions have been replaced by wealth management programs.

The democratisation of wealth is a sham and is underpinned by the ready availability of financial experts who can be wheeled out to opine on everything from the Bank of England’s interest rate strategy to the opportunities available from private credit. We will sit in rooms of gilded splendour , listening to people who we know will charge us for the wine and canapes that follow in further fees, and we will love it.

But deep down, we are worried, because the confidence of those we are paying to look after our money is what we want to have, not what we have. We are deeply insecure about the future because of what we know we can’t control, our health – our family – the economy -even the bedrock of financial stability, the price of our property.

And most of all, we are worried that as we grow older, our capacity to earn and provide for ourselves and our dependents is diminishing. So we will be becoming more reliant on our wealth and those who manage it. And that reliance is not on our own ability to make money, it is on financial services and the products we purchase.

I do not count myself among the wealth, nor do I aspire to the products and services of the wealth management industry. I would happily exchange the pot of money I have saved for my retirement for a wage for life which would pay me so I do not have to work. I have no interest in the ostentatious trappings of wealth, but do want to enjoy the longest holiday of my life, the prospect of which is looming.

In short, I want an ordinary lifestyle in later life so I can pursue other agenda – looking after family and better understanding myself, My aspiration is to be a better person and this is linked to the key values that I have which are based around love.

The love of money in isolation is a perversion of love because it sets wealth as the aspiration. This does not mean we should not be ambitious to achieve financial goals we set ourselves, but we must be wary of reliance on others to achieve them.

This week, I will be having a number of meetings arguing that the proper business of financial services is to provide the platform for us to achieve happiness, happiness is not the achievement of the financial goals we set ourselves but what we do once the platform has been put in place.

Providing later life security through pensions for ourselves and our dependents, is the platform that most of us need as we wind down from work. It is fallacious to assume that those who have become affluent enough to have private pensions aspire to wealth, we don’t.

Let’s rein back the snobbery and get back to achieving the financial goals that matter most;- providing security against living too long, dying too son and losing our health.