Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Friday 20 June 2025. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
IHT receipts rise to £1.5bn as Treasury eyes record year
Inheritance Tax (IHT) receipts for April and May 2025 have reached £1.5bn, which is £98m higher than the same period last year, according to the latest figures from HMRC.
This continues a significant upward trend, with receipts increasing by more than 50% over the past five years.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest forecast, published at the Spring Statement, predicts that IHT will raise £9.1bn in the 2025 to 2026 tax year.
Will advice firms scale back on diversity and inclusion?
The word ‘disappointed’ appeared frequently in response to UK financial regulators’ joint decision in March to not take forward diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) proposals that had been under consultation since 2023.
It was hard to not look ‘across the pond’ at US president Donald Trump’s dismantling of DE&I initiatives and wonder if a similar sentiment was brewing in the UK, writes Amanda Newman Smith.
Some industry commentators felt the 2010 Equality Act was enough of a safeguard to prevent that happening and interpreted the regulators’ apparent retreat in practical terms.
iPipeline launches Advanced Underwriting
iPipeline has launched a major upgrade to its SolutionBuilder platform with the introduction of Advanced Underwriting, a feature designed to improve the accuracy of protection quotes and streamline the application journey for advisers and clients.
Developed over two years in collaboration with The Openwork Partnership, the enhancement addresses a long-standing issue in the protection market where initial quotes often fail to match final terms.
The solution captures upfront medical disclosures to generate more accurate indicative premiums and underwriting outcomes, helping reduce the number of abandoned or repeated applications.
Quote Of The Day
The slightly more dovish than expected vote split doesn’t change our view that the Bank of England is most likely to stick to a quarterly pace of cuts going forward in line with its ‘gradual and careful’ guidance
– Felix Feather, economist at Aberdeen, comments on UK interest rate decision
Stat Attack
Financial coaching steps into the spotlight as workplaces seek to bridge the UK’s growing advice gap. New research shows that
61%
of UK employees have never heard of financial coaching
67%
of women and
73%
of over-55s are unaware. Just
8%
have accessed coaching through work;
6%
Independently. Of those who have used it,
92%
found it beneficial,
50%
feel more confident with money,
43%
improved money skills,
25%
feel more positive about the future,
19%
report better mental health. Usage highest among young adults:
23%
of 18–24s and
19%
of 25–34s.
Source: TrinityBridge
In Other News
Financial services tech provider EV has unveiled a major upgrade to EVDirect, its digital financial guidance solution, now rebuilt on cloud-native, mobile-first technology.
Part of EV’s multichannel suite spanning guidance, hybrid and holistic advice, the new EVDirect offers a smarter, more engaging way to help customers understand their financial future.
Users can model real-time ‘what if’ scenarios, explore the long-term impact of contributions and align their plans with PLSA Retirement Living Standards.
The platform delivers personalised guidance based on individual data, and its API-first design allows seamless integration with existing systems, avoiding data re-entry.
Oil, war and tariffs tear up markets’ central bank roadmap (Reuters)
UK consumer confidence rises, extending a ‘fragile’ rebound (Bloomberg)
Healthcare policy is afflicted by short-sightedness (Financial Times)
Did You See?
Following the implementation of Consumer Duty, the price and value outcome has been identified as the most challenging for advisers, writes Gillian Hepburn commercial director at Benchmark Capital.
While price should be relatively easy to assess, the value of any product or service is always difficult to define – and advice is no different and perhaps more challenging as it’s an intangible.
However, the results of the most recent Schroder adviser survey offer up some useful insights into the value of advice.
The survey was conducted in the immediate wake of ‘Liberation Day’ and the introduction of Trump’s tariffs, which promptly led to market volatility.
