Both targeted support and the Consumer Duty are so “intertwined it is hard to imagine one without the other”.
This is what Hargreaves Lansdown head of targeted support Nathan Long told Money Marketing.
The two are completely in “lockstep”, with the Consumer Duty also acting as a “precursor” to targeted support.
Hargreaves Lansdown sees targeted support as a really important milestone and is a big supporter of the Consumer Duty.
Long explained that as targeted support has been introduced in a post-Consumer Duty world, it will naturally use better wording.
The Duty will now inform how future regulation gets built, Long added.
“We have always seen Consumer Duty as the starting point for the change we are currently going through as a sector.”
He added that targeted support can definitely help people who have never invested before.
Long sees most of the appetite for targeted support coming from banks and platforms, not necessarily advice firms.
However, he believes targeted support could “definitely lead to more people receiving advice, once they see the benefits of targeted support”.
By pointing someone to an adviser every time they have a financial issue, “you are just undermining advice”.
Targeted support helps to better support people across all their needs instead of just turning to an adviser, Long said.
At the Investment Association Funds Symposium conference on 21 October Long said that targeted support unlocks the power to let people make decisions.
Long also believes targeted support will lead to different shaped products for investors.
Long used to be a financial adviser.
Barclays head of private bank and wealth management UK Mohammad Kamal Syed also speaking at the IA conference said the rollout of targeted support “will try and help to unlock the risk dilemma in the UK”.
Syed added that the UK does a great job of telling investors of the risk but not the rewards.
However, he is hopeful that targeted support will allow professionals to not just talk about the problems surrounding a portfolio but also the solutions.
“Targeted support could change this and help people.”
