Most people (including George Osborne, it seems) struggle to understand the difference between guidance and advice.
In the regulated world of financial services there is a very big difference indeed.
This week the Treasury has announced that Citizens Advice and The Pensions Advisory Service will be the first two providers of the Guidance Guarantee service, announced in this year’s Budget statement.
Anyone over age 55 with a money purchase pension plan, typically a personal pension plan, will be directed by their plan provider to a guidance provider to receive, unsurprisingly, guidance about their at retirement choices and options.
In our latest film, Dinosaur the IFA explains to a client the difference between guidance and advice.
The client is astonished to learn that she cannot get free advice and that despite all the Treasury promotional material, it is, in fact, the financial services sector that is paying for the delivery of the guidance service.
The government sure likes to pretend that they have paid to set up these non-advisory organisations and then disingenuously sticks the advice label on them.
Do take a look at the short video below because as you can imagine the last thing we want is for consumers to be confused about the difference between advice and guidance.
Or is it guidance and advice? Confusing eh?!
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