Living either side of the advice boundary

In grappling to devise a regime for the delivery of something short of financial advice, "The problem has always been that one cannot half-give advice." Now the regulator is exploring possible solutions that lie both within and outside the notion of a personal recommendation, writes Adam Samuel.

Adam Samuel BA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted at adamsamuel@aol.com. You can purchase Adam's latest book 'Compliance - a Short Book' at www.amazon.co.uk/Compliance-Short-Book-Adam-Samuel-ebook/dp/B0CTRYBN1J/. For links to where you can buy the second edition of 'Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation', see www.adamsamuel.com/writing.

In the past few years, the Financial Conduct Authority has been squirreling away at the old chestnut of enabling something short of financial advice to be delivered to a public that cannot afford it. CP25/17 proposes a form of non-advice - targeted support - which seems more promising than its 2005 predecessor, basic advice. [1] Already, that has triggered a further consultation CP25/26 on the consequential Handbook changes. All of this shows how difficult the task is of creating a help service for the public at near zero cost.