FCA signals near-term update to simplified pension and investment advice rules

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is close to another rule change for retail investing, with Deputy Chief Executive Sarah Pritchard saying the regulator will soon publish updated rules on simplified advice, the next step in its push to make investment help cheaper and easier to access.

In a drafted speech published by the FCA on Tuesday, Pritchard pointed to early signs that related reforms are beginning to take hold. “Just 6 months in, more than a dozen firms are already authorised to deliver targeted support,” she said. She added: “And early signs are promising: consumers who receive it invest up to 53% more than those who don’t.” The “more than a dozen” figure was cited by Pritchard in the speech. The “up to 53% more” finding comes from research published in April by The Investing and Saving Alliance, or TISA, and the University of Nottingham.

Targeted support is a new regulated activity that lets authorized firms give ready-made suggestions to groups of consumers with shared characteristics, without going all the way to full personalized investment advice. The regime went live on April 6, 2026, following the FCA and HM Treasury’s Advice and Guidance Boundary Review. Firms need FCA permission to offer it. The idea is to help people make pensions and investment decisions through a lighter-touch process than traditional regulated advice, which is typically more detailed and costly.

The coming simplified-advice update has been in train for months. On March 25, 2026, the FCA published consultation paper CP26/10, “Simplifying the Pensions & Investment Advice Rules,” with responses due by May 22. The regulator had previously said a policy statement was expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. Pritchard’s comments suggest that publication is now near. “So we’ll soon publish updated rules, alongside case studies we’ve developed with the Financial Ombudsman Service,” she said in the drafted text.

The FCA has presented both targeted support and simplified advice as part of its response to the retail-investment advice gap — the large number of consumers who could benefit from help with investing or pensions but do not receive full regulated advice. FCA materials have cited roughly 23 million underserved consumers. In her speech, Pritchard linked the latest reforms to wider changes already made by the watchdog, including updates to advice and guidance rules and a broader shift away from highly prescriptive disclosure requirements toward judging firms by customer outcomes under the Consumer Duty.

That broader duty, the FCA’s consumer-protection regime, took effect in July 2023 for products open to sale or renewal and in July 2024 for closed books. Pritchard said the watchdog is trying to reshape regulation around outcomes rather than process. Her remarks were delivered Monday at the Investment Association Annual Dinner 2026 at Guildhall in London and published on the FCA website on Tuesday as a drafted speech, which the regulator noted may differ from the version actually delivered. The 53% figure should also be read narrowly: TISA said people who had never invested before could invest “up to 53% more” after receiving targeted support than those left to decide on their own, rather than representing an average effect across all consumers.