Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are back on the SoapBox, joined by Rebecca Aldridge, Managing Director and founder of Balance: Wealth Planning in Nottingham. Rebecca is a Chartered and Certified Financial Planner and a trained Financial Life Planner. The panel asks what happens when providers start building the advice for you, why the FCA has politely asked the world's biggest AI companies to behave, where people should draw the line before bringing in an adviser, and whether a clone of a top financial planner could ever do the job. Then, to finish, another tax on the banks.
The White Label Trap
A major provider is launching low cost advice technology: a direct-to-consumer platform with simplified advice built in, and a white label version advisers can put their own brand on for smaller clients. Matt, who took part in the original research, likes the innovation but sees a catch. If the tech is really good, advisers could end up giving their lower fee clients a better service than their core ones, and a client who finds the same thing without the adviser's logo may ask what the extra fee was for.
Rebecca is more cynical about the motive. The target market is clients with between £100,000 and £500,000, which for many planners is a very good client, not an advice gap. Abraham asks the question nobody has answered yet: when an adviser charges for advice built on someone else's logic, who is responsible when it goes wrong? Rebecca's worry runs deeper. A model like this downplays the human side of advice and raises the value of custody and provision, when it should be the other way round.
"So it's tilting the seesaw in the wrong direction."
The FCA Asks “Nicely”
After a review found a quarter of UK consumers trust general purpose AI tools for financial advice, the FCA decided not to extend its remit. Instead, it has asked AI providers to add clearer disclaimers and risk warnings. Rebecca points out that it is a request, not a rule, and the regulator has already spent years trying to get social media platforms to act on financial promotions.
Matt wants the FCA to set proper rules for any firm dealing with UK consumers. Abraham takes the other side: AI tools already say they are not financial advisers, people should take some responsibility, and if the profession only serves a small slice of the population, somebody else has to serve the rest. Rebecca agrees the profession doesn't need to police AI, but explains why advisers still worry. The line between guidance and advice has blurred before, and when it moves, advisers tend to pick up the bill.
"The FCA is politely asking these trillion dollar companies if they could behave themselves."
Where Should DIY Investing Stop?
New research suggests a good number of people are happy to make their own investment decisions on smaller sums. So where should the line be before bringing in a professional? Matt argues it is about complexity rather than the size of the pot, and that advice for straightforward cases at the lower end often adds little beyond product. Rebecca, also a fixed fee planner, agrees and welcomes people feeling more confident about their money. What worries her is something else in the research: people's fears about ill health and being unable to work. In the rush to gather assets, she argues, the profession is overlooking protection and the planning basics.
"I feel like we're at risk of missing the basics and getting distracted by shiny things."
Send in the Clones
Abraham pitches "Becky AI": a copy of Rebecca's expertise, with guardrails, offered as a cheaper version of her to clients she couldn't otherwise serve. Rebecca thinks the technology to duplicate a person is almost here, but she wouldn't license her own image, and she doubts a clone would give advice as good. A system can only work with what you tell it. A human planner notices the hesitation, the child missing from the form, the question being dodged.
Matt agrees the tech can't replicate Rebecca, but argues it may already beat the average adviser at picking up on vulnerability. Abraham goes further, insisting a clone can get 80 percent of the way there, while the human's final 20 percent is worth every penny. Rebecca adds a reality check: AI isn't free, and the cost of delivering it is only going to rise.
"A human would be able to identify that and challenge it in a way that a piece of technology can't."
Another Tax on the Banks
The episode closes on reports that the Chancellor is planning another tax on the banks. Matt sees it as politics, not economics: banks are an easy target, and the cost tends to be passed on to customers. Rebecca agrees it's an easy win with voters, and admits she's surprised capital gains tax has been ruled out for now. If the money has to come from somewhere, she says, the banks will do.
"So it's about politics, not about economics."