The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched its five-year strategy, with a specific focus on improving consumer protection and enhancing financial support for savers.

The FCA outlined four key priorities in its strategy: becoming a smarter regulator, supporting sustained economic growth, helping consumers navigate their financial lives, and tackling financial crime.

It also emphasised the FCA's commitment to targeted support and to ensuring that individuals, especially those who do not currently access financial advice, are equipped with the support and information they need to make informed decisions about their pensions.

The regulator said that it intends to work with the industry to make it easier for people to navigate their retirement savings and investment options with greater confidence.

In particular, it emphasised that the new regulatory regime for targeted support will allow people who currently do not access financial advice to make the most of their
pensions and invest with greater confidence.

Standard Life retirement savings director, Mike Ambery, welcomed the prioritisation of targeted support in FCA’s five-year strategy, stating: "It's encouraging to see targeted support prioritised in the FCA's strategy update.

"As we mark the tenth anniversary of pensions freedoms, it's clear that savers value flexibility but also crave stability and certainty in retirement and, with less than 10 per cent using a financial adviser, improving access to tailored guidance is crucial to help people get the balance right.

"It's vital that we keep up the momentum behind this initiative to make sure that people understand their options and feel confident in making the right decisions for them."

He argued that a collaborative approach between the regulator, consumer groups, providers and policymakers over the next few years will be "essential" to ensure "swift implementation of a strong targeted support solution".

He said that done well, this has the potential to enable movement from complexity to clarity and deliver meaningful support to help people navigate their retirement with confidence.

Just Group group communications director, Stephen Lowe, echoed this, noting that despite the progress made with pension freedoms, many consumers still lack the support they need to make decisions about their financial future.

"There is also acceptance that people are not yet getting the support and information they need to make decisions for their financial futures," he said.

"Certainly, use of regulated advice by people accessing pensions has fallen so there is a lot riding on the success of the changes likely to be brought in following the advice-guidance boundary review although that is still some way off."

The strategy also suggested that by reforming the information investors receive, the authority can ensure people are not overwhelmed by disclosures before taking informed risk, which will be underpinned by consumer duty, which was introduced in the FCA's last strategy.

It suggested that this was integral to how regulated financial firms treat their customers and will increase people’s confidence when seeking products and services that meet their needs and match their capacity for risk.

Commenting on the launch of the strategy, FCA chair, Ashley Alder, said: “We want to deepen trust in financial services and shift our collective attitude across financial services to risk.

“Too often the focus has been on the risks of a decision taken rather than the lost opportunity of taking none. We want to change that so we can spur growth and improve lives.”

FCA chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, added that the FCA’s four priorities reinforce one another and said the authority “looks forward” to collaborating with its partners as it becomes a smarter regulator, supports growth, helps consumers, and fights crime.

“We are ambitious for the future and committed to enabling a fair and thriving financial services market for the good of consumers and the economy,” he said.

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