It has been a big week for regulation. An ‘independent’ report for the Treasury has backed Sheldon Mills view that the regulator must review the regulatory perimeter and makes some remarkable assertions.
This is included in the Financial Services AI Adoption Plan with this – recommendation and accompanying statement.
“The FCA should undertake a comprehensive review of the consumer, competition and wider impacts of financial guidance and advice-like outputs generated by general purpose large language models (LLMs). Based on the findings, the FCA should work with the government to develop a clear policy and regulatory response.”
This obviously chimes with the report from now former FCA executive Sheldon Mills the week before. It also imagines what seems to be ‘population-scale’ AI advice. To qiuote: “If deployed within an appropriate regulatory framework, AI-driven advice has the potential to fundamentally reshape advice provision, enabling low-cost, personalised, and always-on support at population scale.”
This was my take on Octo Members - AI-driven advice at 'population scale' - The Treasury's AI Adoption plan plots an advice revolution.
We need to be a bit careful about exactly what happens next. There is no Chancellor in position at time of writing and it will still fall to the FCA board but big changes seem to be afoot in terms of what may and, arguably more importantly, what may not be deemed to be advice.
This is a big move on the direct side of the market - MoneySuperMarket launches 0.34% investing platform with Seccl, reported on Citywire New Model Adviser.
He was always a shrewd chap - Anthony Bolton’s robo wealth bet swells to £6m fortune, as Citywire New Model Adviser reports again.
The former Fidelity Special Situations manager is sitting on a massive profit after investing £200,000 to help Moneybox get off the ground in 2016.
A big story from Platforum which finds that the UK discretionary wealth management market reached £1.24tn in assets under management at the end of 2025, as adviser demand for model portfolios continued to grow. Money Marketing reports.
Advice for the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham - Growth in the economy should be top priority for Andy Burnham. FTAdviser suggests.
St James's Place shares down amid AR exits. Professional Adviser reports.
One that was, arguably, missed - Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd; Google Cloud EMEA Ltd; Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL; and Oracle Corporation UK Ltd have been designated as critical third parties. The Treasury press release is here.
By early 2027 the UK is set to become the first G7 country to issue a digital sovereign bond, with plans for future issuance to come, according to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves in her third annual Mansion House speech.
This sort of bond uses distributed ledger technology such as blockchain rather than traditional financial market infrastructure to operate.
