Reported in the media today is an offering from Sun Life Direct of a stocks & shares ISA aimed at the ‘mass market’.
Sun Life Direct commented that for too long investment products have been aimed at high net worth customers.
Whilst this is true, there is a very good reason for it and the firm has evidenced this for themselves although they may not have understood what they have measured.
The company reports that their own research shows 39% of the ‘mass market’ have no savings at all.
A further 24% of those that have savings have less than £1,000.
Blend these two figures together and the conclusion is that nearly 54% of the mass market consumers have less than £1,000 in savings.
We are not told in the media coverage how much in savings is owned by the other 46% of this market but it might be reasonable to assume that another 24% have say up to £10,000 in savings.
Let’s imagine that the balance 20% have between £10,000 and £30,000 in savings in the main skewed to the lower end of these figures.
It should not come as any surprise to Sun Life Direct, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or the Government that an advice gap exists and that it is pretty much impossible for the IFA sector to engage with the vast majority of the public.
Put bluntly these people have more important financial decisions to make such as keeping a roof over their heads and paying the bills.
