Excited?
I wonder if I should feel excited that the Government’s FCA feels we need guidance as to how to benefit from private pensions. Shouldn’t we be able to benefit from our retirement savings without targeted guidance?
The public has made it obvious that it is not excited by our Money and Pensions Service and especially the Pensions Wise service that was set up to make pension freedom work
It now sits in a corner of a Government site , a few lines which lead you nowhere
The Government has now parked this nonsense service away , hoping that we will forget it existed. MAPS offers information for people who want to navigate options themselves
The digital service is laid out below
Targeted support to the rescue?
Now we have a new service available through advisory firms that offers less generic and more specific guidance. But this is showing no sign of being a hit with the population. Professional Pensions report a slow uptake
To quote the article
The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) targeted support framework took effect yesterday (6 April) but advisers warn there could be a “slow start”.
The new framework allows firms to make suggestions to groups of consumers with common characteristics, aiming to help reduce the advice gap.Following a consultation, the authorisation gateway for firms was opened in March 2026, allowing firms to apply for permission to provide targeted support.
However, a Freedom of Information Act request from Sicsic Advisory revealed only 19 firms were using the FCA’s pre-application support service (PASS) in January.
Data revealed that 12 firms registered for PASS in September 2025, five in October 2025, and only two in November 2025.The applicants included six financial advice firms, six life insurers, five retail banks and two investment platforms.
This was after the FCA estimated around 96 firms will go on to offer targeted support.
Boring Money founder and chief executive (CEO) Holly Mackay predicts a “slow start this year with lots of learnings”. However, Mackay added she remains hopeful this will be an “eventual game-changer” for millions.Royal London one of the first providers to get FCA approval
Royal London confirmed today (7 April) that it has received approval to deliver targeted support, making it one of the first providers to do so.
We have been here before
The failure of Maps has been that it has followed not led and the same will go for
British people have quickly learned that the tools that give them specific guidance are available through Chat GPT and many versions of AI
The same will happen to “targeted support”. What people want is information about what they have bought or are buying. This will be available one day from the Pensions Dashboard.
But guidance about what to do with what is digitally on show is unlikely going to involve human intervention. Just as happened with Pension Wise, banal guidance will not be taken up by the majority of those needing help, people need help on what they should do and the complexity of choices people have is so great that targeted support will just expose the complexity of “pension freedom”.
A simpler way.
The defaults emerging from the Pension Scheme Bill and the collective pensions emerging from the CDC legislation make it easier for ordinary people to get themselves a pension, which is all that most people expected from their saving.
You do not need targeted support to work out to get yourself a pension. Pensions are easy, it’s freedom that is hard!
Of course many well off people will go to advisers and a number will use targeted support and help through services such as Guiide. But these are minorities.
The majority of us (and this isn’t just about wealth) want simplicity, Until we get simple ways to turn pots into pensions and in due course to have pensions rather than ports. We will be lost and confused and targeted support, like Pension Wise, will lead us back to websites and guidance from artificial intelligence.