Creating Fairer Financial Futures   

Advice Guidance Boundary Review Innovation Call

The Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) launched its latest Innovation Call last week, which addresses one of the most important regulatory shifts in financial services and could reshape how millions of people access financial support.

The call is all about finding new ways to help consumers make informed financial decisions, delivering more accessible and tailored support while staying within evolving regulatory expectations. 

The call focusses on the FCA’s Advice Guidance Boundary Review – a technical name for a very human issue: how to make financial help clearer, fairer and available to far more people. 

To understand what all this means – and how it connects to creating a fairer financial future – we spoke with Kostas Oikonomakos, Programme Manager at the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), ahead of last week’s launch of the Innovation Call.

In Conversation with Kostas Oikonomakos

Hi Kostas! 

Q: OK, let’s start with what is the Advice Guidance Boundary Review, and why does it matter? 
Kostas: The AGBR is a really important development for the financial services industry. Right now, millions of people in the UK don’t receive any financial advice at all. Advice exists, of course, but it’s often too expensive for most people. The Review aims to make sure those people can finally get some form of support to help them make important decisions about their money.

Just 9% of UK adults took financial advice in the year leading up to 2022. While 64% hadn’t in five years. This highlights an ‘advice gap’ affecting an estimated 12 million people identified as non-advised but with need or potential.

_{*Stats from FCA’s 2022 Financial Lives Survey and the Financial Services Scheme.}

It’s also good for firms. It gives them new ways to deliver support that is practical and can scale. And it brings clarity. Today, there are grey areas where a firm thinks they’re offering guidance, but the FCA might say it’s actually advice. AGBR will help define what is advice, what is guidance, and how new services like ‘targeted support’ and ‘simplified advice’ fit in. That clarity will help the whole financial system work better for everyone. 

Q: Why does this matter to our everyday lives? 
Kostas: The gap is real. The wealthy can afford advice, but millions of people don’t receive any support at all, so they have to navigate pensions, savings, and long-term planning by themselves. New types of guided support can help close that gap and improve confidence and outcomes for people who’ve never had access to anything before. 

Q: At what points in our lives would we feel the difference created by AGBR, and how would it change the way we access advice or guidance? 
Kostas: You’d notice it would make financial decisions easier. For example, when you’re getting close to retirement and need to understand your pension options, but you can’t afford full advice. With developments from AGBR, you could use a digital service that gives you targeted support based on the information you share, helping you make decisions with much more confidence. The same applies if you have a few small pension pots from different employers and don’t know how they fit together. Guided tools can help you navigate that without needing a one-to-one adviser. 

You’d also see the difference much earlier in life. Let’s say you have a small amount of savings and you’re trying to work out how to make it grow, or you’re deciding whether to pay off debt or put money into a pension. Right now, most people in that situation get no support at all. New ‘advice-lite’ services would give clearer, personalised guidance at a price people can actually access. And in time, as open finance develops, firms could safely build a fuller picture of your financial situation and offer even more accurate guidance without you having to pull everything together yourself. 

Q: What is the main challenge that the FCA is trying to address? 
Kostas: The main challenge the FCA and HM Treasury are trying to solve through the AGBR is that too few people are getting the financial support they need. There are lots of people who could really benefit from help but don’t get it – that is the advice gap. Part of the problem is that firms aren’t always sure where the line sits between regulated advice and general guidance. The Review should clear up that uncertainty and create space for new, more affordable ways to help people, like Targeted Support and Simplified Advice, so that many more consumers can get the right help at the right time. 

Q: What is the difference between advice and guidance? 
Kostas: Advice is the traditional, regulated service where an adviser understands your full financial picture and gives you a personalised recommendation. It’s tailored to you and your long-term goals, and the firm takes responsibility for that recommendation. Guidance is different. It doesn’t look at your whole situation and it doesn’t tell you exactly what to do. Instead, it helps point you in the right direction based on the information you choose to share. It supports your decision, but it’s not a personalised recommendation. 

Q: Why is FRIL taking on this topic right now, and what does it hope to achieve? 
Kostas: The timing is ideal because the AGBR framework is still being developed. Final rules are expected by the end of 2025, with firms able to apply for the new targeted-support regime from Spring 2026. That means there’s still an opportunity to feed in insights before anything becomes enforceable.  

This creates a safe space for firms to share challenges and explore potential solutions without regulatory pressure. Through this work, we can generate early evidence and practical ideas to help shape how the new regime operates in practice. 

The kinds of ideas we expect to explore include digital tools for targeted support, simpler ‘advice-lite’ journeys, interactive disclosures, and even early work on open finance so firms can safely access a fuller picture of a customer’s finances. The goal is to produce practical, testable solutions that show how AGBR could work in the real world, to prepare for tomorrow and to improve outcomes for people who currently receive no support at all. 

Q: Why is FRIL a good environment to help shape developments? 

Kostas: More broadly, what FRIL wants to achieve is genuine collaboration around real problems. Large firms get early sight of new technologies and ideas that could help them support customers at scale. Fintechs get a clear understanding of what those firms actually need, and they can adjust or sharpen their solutions accordingly. The FCA is part of those conversations too, which is helpful for any fintech that might want to become regulated in future. And our academic partners bring research and analytical thinking that helps everyone look at these issues from different angles. 

Q: OK quick summary – how does this help create a fairer financial future? 
Kostas: By widening access. More people get the right kind of help, firms can serve broader audiences, and the rules are clearer. That combination improves confidence, access to financial advice and guidance, and ultimately, better outcomes for everyone. 

Explaining the terminology

The Advice Guidance Boundary Review. Just what does it mean? A brief glossary:

• Advice: A regulated service where a financial adviser looks at your full financial situation and gives you a personalised recommendation.
• Guidance: Support that points you in the right direction based on limited information you share, without telling you exactly what to do.
• Boundary: The line that separates advice from guidance, defining how much information is needed and what a firm can or can’t recommend.
• Review: The FCA’s process of consulting industry and consumers, and government to create clear new rules that will shape how these services work in future.

What next?

Over the coming weeks, FRIL will be exploring new technologies, fresh thinking and real-world challenges with partners across the ecosystem. Watch this space for insights and thought leadership content from across the call – there’s much more to come. 

Email the team at FRIL@fintechscotland.com if you’d like more information about our Innovation Calls. 

About FRIL

FRIL is part of the larger Glasgow City Region Innovation Accelerator programme with Glasgow, one of three pilot regions’ – including West Midlands – sharing a £100m investment aimed at transforming R&D within the UK. Led by Innovate UK, and delivered by Fintech Scotland in partnership with the University of Strathclyde and the University of Glasgow, this programme supports the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda by empowering local regions to drive economic growth through innovation. This approach not only supports regional development but also positions the UK as a leader in the global innovation landscape.

Read more