Holly's 5 things for 2025

Goodness me, 2025 has burst out of the blocks and roared into action. As I buckle up my seatbelt for the ride, here are 5 strategic questions which are on my focus list this year.

DIY investing (or ‘digital wealth’)

If we consider assets alone, this market has shot up by nearly 80% in the last 5 years. Costs have inched down, competition has increased, ETFs are on the rise as active management struggles to persuade, Hargreaves Lansdown is under pressure to redefine its value, and banks are all talking about ‘wealth’. I expect robos to add capabilities to become fuller platforms, and fuller platforms to continue to add ready-made investment options, so that the ‘robo’ distinction becomes irrelevant in a few years’ time.

Two-thirds of investors have a relationship with at least one DIY platform. I think we’ll see the number of DIY accounts surpass 12 million in 2025. Boom. For context, it was 6 million at the start of 2020. (Date for your diary – we launch our 2025 Online Investing Report on the 6th of March).

Workplace pension awareness

As balances grow, pensions are starting to become a mass market conversation, not a dinner party chat after the pheasant shoot. This means a new era of comparison, consolidation and choice, and workplace providers will need to compete with their slicker yet often pricier retail competitors. How will they articulate value(not to governance committees, but to your average Jo)? We’re hosting a roundtable of workplace pensions to discuss this in the coming weeks – let me know if you would like to participate.

Targeted Support

This is a game-changer. I really believe that. With draft rules expected for pensions by the summer, I think the biggest challenge for providers interested is not so much the products at the end of the journey, but attracting people into the journey in the first place. Proper segmentation and informed decision about how we group customers in ‘people with characteristics like me’ will be vital. Similarly, planning and building the content and pages to take people on this journey. Talk to us if we can help– we are testing and learning with our 55,000 weekly readers right now. How to continually boost engagement and encourage knowledge-building and then potential action?

Vulnerable Customers

I don’t think we’ve heard the last on this from the FCA. About one-third of all investors display at least one vulnerable characteristic at any one point in time. The challenge from groups is how to identify something which can be temporary. And once identified, what can you actually do to support whilst acknowledging proportionality and resources? We’re recognising excellence here with our award for Support for Vulnerable Customers- you have just over 1 week to tell us what you’re up to and enter!

Understanding and evidencing fair value

This remains fundamentally important. Value drivers differ depending on the service. So advice firms are judged differently to asset managers. We’re working with both advised and non-advised customers to identify what people value, articulate how much they value each factor, and then support firms to track, monitor, benchmark and then actually get better as a result of this. I expect more of a regulatory focus on value in 2025.

Price is of course not value but it’s a key part. We’re talking to a group of wealth managers about how to better support price disclosure and comparison, so please get in touch if you’d like to hear more about our plans.

One thing is sure. If you thought 2024 was busy, I’m afraid to say that I think 2025 is going to be pretty frantic too. Come and talk to us if you want to know anything consumer, need some data, or have a question. Always interested to hear what’s bugging you, or to offer a view if you’re struggling with prioritisation, want to know if everyone else has something sorted and it’s just you (clue: most people are struggling!) or how to move from insights to action.

Holly