Are consumer needs for advice and guidance being met?

Following our press briefing in London, we’re excited to be releasing our report with YouGov on the UK financial advice gap. We found that 19.8 million people* across the UK would appreciate a bit of financial advice. But not everyone knows how to get it or that it’s even an option for them.

We speak to customers every day about their financial situations, and we’re all too aware of the financial advice gap across the UK.

When we launched OpenMoney we made it our missions to make financial advice available for everyone. Which is why we wanted to undergo this research to get a better understanding of the advice gap issue in our country.

Our advisers talk to people aged 18 to 75 and it’s usually the first time they’ve tried to get advice.

There are a few reasons for this.

Some people thought it was too expensive, whilst others felt they would be overlooked by advisers as they had a relatively small amount to invest.

There’s a belief that traditional face-to-face financial advice is only accessible to those who have already got a large amount to invest, typically those who are approaching or at retirement.

In 2015, Citizens Advice conducted some research around the advice gap and identified four different types.

1. The affordable advice gap affects consumers who are willing to pay for advice but think it is too expensive.
2. The free advice gap affects people who want advice but are unable to pay for it and are unaware of, or unable to access, free services.
3. The awareness and referral gap affects people who do not know where to get advice.
4. The preventative advice gap affects those for whom non-money issues can impact their financial position.

We decided to build on this research to understand to what extend these gaps still exist and if the availability of advice services has improved in the past four years.

Download the report

Download our 2019 financial advice gap.

*Where figures like this are shown, OpenMoney has extrapolated the YouGov findings from our sample to represent GB population estimate of 50,644,094 (source ONS, June 2018).

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