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Liberation Day has arrived – and we can’t say we weren’t warned. But the way forward is still unclear.  

Even the most experienced Trump watchers, used to a more rhetoric-driven, flip-flop approach, have been caught on the wrong foot. Knowing the incumbent president’s love of the “art of the deal”, trade rhetoric and executive orders were considered to be pressure tactics to achieve various objectives. But we should not have been surprised: for once, Trump has been surprisingly consistent. Tariffs were an issue on which he ran his election campaign, and tariffs were what we got. What is ironic is the faith in protectionism from a committed capitalist.  

Whether this is the beginning of a trade war is matter of much debate and discussion, and depends on the reaction of the countries in the EU and Asia facing the brunt of the tariffs. Various options come to mind, none of them remotely beneficial to the global economy. One potential approach is reminiscent of the period between 2009 and 2011, where economies devalued their currency to maintain their exports, with China being singled out. Another would be a reconfiguration of supply chains and closer cooperation among tariff-hit markets, creating an agglomeration of manufacturing and consuming countries outside the US. Either way, there will be pressure on global growth and prices, leading to a period of uncertainty with respect to interest rates and inflation.  

The impact felt at the corporate level will be a more significant factor in either the persistence or abolition of imposed tariffs. The major corporations on the S&P 500 have invested significantly in the economies facing the largest tariffs. Given the ubiquitousness of the silicon chip in all businesses, the tariffs could have a broad impact, but the first-order effects will be felt by companies in the US involved in chip manufacturing or use. These companies have invested heavily in building up manufacturing capabilities in Asia. While the idea behind the tariffs is to stimulate the onshoring of manufacturing and create jobs, the abject reality is that recreating these facilities will take time and investment. Commitments to invest onshore need to be viewed through the prism of return on investment – which does factor in what has already been invested. The result might be serious lobbying from the corporate world for exemptions from tariffs to protect their investments and manufacturing processes. But until these are granted – if indeed they are granted at all – all that remains is uncertainty around future cashflows, which translates into stock price volatility.  

For investors, then, anticipate a period of elevated market volatility, which could be sharp or protracted. As with any volatility, the key will be to ride it out, rather than making portfolio decisions on the back of an announcement. As my old mentor used to say, choosing not to act is also an active decision. As the smoke from the opening salvos clears, there will be time to take a more balanced approach to any portfolio changes, based on hard facts rather than on what today feels almost emotional. Right now, it’s more important to follow the tenet our country made famous: “Keep calm and carry on”.  

For this year’s International Women’s Day we analysed the difference in men and women’s attitudes towards investing. The analysis is based on the data from our market leading suite of psychometric client profiling questionnaires, used by over 40% of advisers in the UK to support more than two million investors. This rich dataset allows us to understand what drives client attitudes and their preferences, but further exploring differences due to demographic factors, such as gender, can enable us to develop interventions and strategies to help clients.

Attitude to risk and financial personality

We made some interesting findings – in terms of attitude to risk*, on average, men are more risk tolerant than women across risk profiles 1-10, with more women than men being RP1-5, and more men than women RP6-10. Across all elements of financial personality, men are more risk tolerant. They tend to view themselves as more risk-seeking, more fearful of missing out on investment opportunities, better able to tolerate the ups and downs and have stronger positive emotions towards taking risk, but a weaker desire for certainty in comparison to women.

Retirement income preferences and sacrifices

Overall, women and men are quite similar in their views on retirement income preferences. Although, women care more than men about leaving something behind after they’re gone (legacy) and having a fixed income (consistency), whilst for men, having flexibility in the amount of income they can take each year is more important than both of these. Women are more willing than men to cut back their expenditure during retirement but less willing to return to work or access income from another source. Finally, a smaller percentage of women than men are ready to commit and make a lasting decision about their retirement plan.

Financial wellbeing

Regardless of gender, working with a financial adviser can have a positive impact. Women appear to benefit more from advice in terms of their emotional resilience, emotion during uncertainty and emotion regulation. Women are less disheartened if they fail to achieve their financial goals, this change being greater than what we observe for men. They dwell less on their problems after receiving advice and are more optimistic about investing, again the effect of advice appears stronger than that for men. Women’s financial self-efficacy and knowledge, appears to be positively but more equally effected when making comparisons with men.

Subjective Measures of Financial Wellbeing

Often our findings show that women can be more risk averse and less confident in managing their finances, but what we discovered is that financial advice can have a significantly positive impact on women. The next steps within the industry should be to identify what elements of financial advice are driving this positive difference in order to create interventions tailored to enable women greater inclusion in financial planning and increased confidence and resilience.

*Risk profiles featured are based on Dynamic Planner’s 75 asset class asset risk model, that currently risk profiles over 1800 funds and solutions from over 150 asset managers.

Last year, FTRC undertook research with Opinium on behalf of Dynamic Planner with 4,000 members of the public.* We commissioned the survey to explore the opportunity for technology to narrow the advice gap, after Dame Harriett Baldwin, MP, gave a keynote at the 2024 Dynamic Planner Conference where she said: “Only the rich, the 8%, can benefit from the healthy financial options. The remaining 92% are being left in the generic aisles’’.

For International Women’s Day 2025, we decided to look further into what this means for women specifically, and found that despite many advances in terms of equality and income, women are still less likely to seek financial advice than men – the research showed that 18% of men were receiving financial advice versus 11% of women.

Why does this matter?

The incomes of women continue to rise, along with the average age of death, yet they unfortunately remain underserved by both advisers and the financial structures that we have today. Analysis of our risk profiling data shows that while women can be more risk adverse, have lower levels of confidence and financial wellbeing, given the right tools they can make better financial decisions than men. The confidence having a financial coach, the right information and that information delivered to them in the right way can be invaluable. As clients, women offer great potential, so what is standing in the way of firms shifting the balance to having a more diversified client base?

Engagement and communicating to women in the right way is crucial – our research found that 53% of men receive advice in person versus 46% of women, and this could indicate that some women may prefer to engage with their adviser in a different way. When asked, 1 in 2 women (54%) said they would like to track investments and access personalised financial content via a mobile phone app – which was significantly higher than any other form of communication – including email and video call.

Currently just 18% of women receive financial advice via an app – indicating that of those women who say they would like an app, a third do not have one – the question is, how do we get apps like Tram to them? Technology has been transformational for financial planning and it has the power to help firms break down barriers in a way we’ve not seen before. We need to work together to #AccelerateAction and bring women into this new way of shaping their future – digitalisation of the financial planning process could be the gamechanger women need.

*An AdviserSoftware.com report commissioned by Dynamic Planner in 2024: Meeting the future financial planning needs of consumers through technology.

by Chris Jones, Chief Product Officer, Dynamic Planner

The Financial Conduct Authority have published the long-awaited findings of its review into the delivery of ongoing advice – and the news is good.

In 83% of cases where firms had committed to providing suitability reviews, those reviews were delivered. In 15% of cases, clients either declined or did not respond to the firm’s offer of a review. In fewer than 2% of cases did firms report they had made no attempt to provide the promised review.

In response, the FCA is asking all advice firms to review its findings, and to consider whether they have met their regulatory requirements and contractual obligations regarding ongoing services. In the cases where reviews were neither offered nor provided, the regulator expects redress to be due.

Oversight is key to ensuring compliance

The FCA’s review focused on larger firms – and provided examples of best practice that smaller firms should now look to follow. Firms that got it right had ‘effective systems and adequate resources’ to ensure reviews were scheduled and offered as agreed with the client.

Many of those larger firms are already Dynamic Planner users, so this is no surprise to us. We know firms need processes and management information they can rely on to enable them to control, oversee and evidence compliance with their contractual and regulatory obligations.

Dynamic Planner Insights provides you with a comprehensive suite of reports to monitor and manage your clients and your business. Reports cover all client, advice and planning activity undertaken in Dynamic Planner – including reporting on ongoing servicing tailored to meet FCA information requests.

A good time to rethink your advice and service proposition

While the regulator does not expect redress to be due in the cases in which clients declined or failed to take up an offer to complete a suitability review, it does raise a question over the future provision of ongoing advice to such clients.

If a client has persistently declined a review or failed to engage over a number of years, the FCA expects firms to consider whether an ongoing service remains in that client’s best interest. At 15%, those refusing or failing to take up reviews represent a sizeable proportion of the advised population, and firms who wish to retain those clients should take action now.

While there a wide range of platforms, products and investment solutions to choose from for different client groups, the most important advice and service propositions are quite homogenous. Why not mix it up with something new that the client will enjoy and engage with, and which you can afford to deliver?

Our white-labelled mobile app, Tram, is a powerful route to enhanced engagement, putting the financial plan in the palm of the client’s hand through a seamless digital experience.

With Tram, clients have instant access to their portfolio, objectives and risk level, wherever and whenever they need it. Secure in-app messaging reduces the email and admin burden for both adviser and client. A growing library of tailored content can help you strengthen and deepen the relationship, drive return visits and demonstrate your ongoing value.

Look out for further developments

Finally, the FCA has committed to review the rules relating to ongoing services ‘to make sure they remain fit for the future and help as many people as possible to get good support in managing their financial lives’.

The requirements for an ongoing service have been ripe for a revisit for some years, so this should be seen as a positive for the sector. As the regulator notes, new business models and technology have come to market in the decade-plus since the Retail Distribution Review, and client needs are changing too. A service centred on the annual review may no longer be right for all your customers.

Greater flexibility here will allow firms to innovate and design ongoing services that meet the full spectrum of client needs, helping you to address the growing digital audience and reach new target markets.

Not a Dynamic Planner user? Schedule a no obligation demo to see how we can support you with your review process.

Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading digital advice platform, is now risk rating Aubrey Citadel Fund.

Aubrey Capital Management is a specialist boutique manager with a distinctive investment approach, primarily focused on global equities. Founded in 2006, it manages £795 million of client assets across long only growth equity strategies and a diversified, macro-driven strategy.

The Aubrey Citadel Fund is part of a £65m strategy managed by Jon Gumpel with a capital preservation mind-set. Jon has a strong long term track record of delivering consistent growth with low volatility. The Fund is positioned in a range of lower valuation and higher cashflow return global assets and pays a yield of c.4% pa.

Yasmina Siadatan, Chief Revenue Officer at Dynamic Planner said: “We are delighted to welcome Aubrey, a new fund partner to Dynamic Planner, underlining our commitment to continually expand the universe of funds on the platform and provide the largest choice for advisers.

“Joining over 150 asset managers and 1800+ funds and solutions, Aubrey Citadel will be risk profiled using our institutional quality, whole of market risk analysis. Our 75 asset class risk model is proven over two decades, including in periods of crisis, and trusted by over 45% of advice firms in the UK to match suitable solutions for their clients with confidence.”

Andrew Ward, CEO at Aubrey Capital Management said: “We are pleased that the Aubrey Citadel Fund is now risk profiled by Dynamic Planner, a leading software provider to UK financial advisers.

“With a three-year track record on the horizon later this year, we believe this important third-party validation of the Fund’s defensive and diversifying qualities will help support discussions with advisers around how the Fund can best support their clients’ portfolios.”

“The combination of support for smartphone fact finding, data driven insights and AI based automation is the catalyst needed to drive down the cost to serve clients compliantly and make advice more accessible to the millions of people who want it and more profitable to the firms that provide it.”
Ben Goss, CEO, Dynamic Planner.

At its ‘Pioneering Tomorrow’s Technology’ Conference, Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading digital advice platform, has unveiled its 2025 developments including its plans for Generative AI, the integration of which will target a new benchmark in the time taken to produce annual review reports to under 5 seconds; an AI Charter; and a raft of new developments.

In his keynote speech, speaking to over 500 financial planning professionals and describing Dynamic Planner as ‘technology pioneers’, Ben Goss, CEO, set out the three key principles that technology must deliver on for advice firms:

  1. End-to-end support for the advice process, where regulatory scrutiny is ever increasing – with a firm’s proposition and advice policy embedded.
  2. Data driven processes to save time and provide the actionable intelligence firms need to demonstrate they are delivering under Consumer Duty.
  3. Thirdly, automation of as much of the technical and administrative process as possible – leaving advisers free to focus on higher-value activities in-particular client coaching.

To support this, Dynamic Planner has announced the following key developments designed to equip advice firms with the technology needed to navigate the challenges and complexities they face whilst creating the capacity in their firm to deliver the trust and confidence clients are looking for from personal, professional advice:

Generative AI within Dynamic Planner

Dynamic Planner AI Charter

Launch of Dynamic Planner Insights:

Launch of holistic engaging, fact finding optimised for smartphones and Tram

Ben Goss, CEO, Dynamic Planner said: “As advice technology pioneers we continuously ask ourselves about the role we can play in helping everyone who wants financial advice to be able to access it and firms to be able to provide it even more compliantly and profitably. It’s well understood that while four million people benefit from personal advice currently, 12 million more would pay for it if it could be made more accessible and affordable. It is also true that firms often face an internal ‘advice gap’ struggling to profitably serve smaller value clients or the next generation of client. The power of personal financial advice is clear, but the barriers remain and cost to serve is an ongoing challenge.

“So where does technology come in to making this very human aspect of advice more accessible to more people? The combination of end-to-end process support including for smartphones, data driven processes and automation is the catalyst. It will create the capacity that’s needed; it will lower the cost to serve; it will help advice firms confidently meet the regulations; but most compellingly, it will enable the advice industry to scale the human element of what it does – acting as professional advisers and coaches to the many existing and new clients who need and want personal advice.”

Dynamic Planner – Technology Milestones

Notes:

* Industry average time to produce an annual review report 4.5 hours in October 2023. Dynamic Planner reduced the time for reviews from 4.5 hours to 35 minutes for 80% of clients and 5 mins for the top 20%. They are targeting to get this down to under 5 seconds with generative AI embedded within the platform.

St. James’s Place (SJP), the UK’s largest wealth manager, has entered into a long-term partnership with Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading digital advice platform, to provide comprehensive client risk profiling services.

Dynamic Planner’s profiling capabilities will be made accessible to SJP’s 4,800 advisers and 7,500 support staff. This collaboration supports SJP’s commitment to delivering quality, long-term, one-to-one advice and supporting its advisers with advanced technology to improve the capture and evidencing of the risk preferences of its clients.

SJP selected Dynamic Planner for its comprehensive solution, ability to support the Partnership’s scale, and the strength of its methodology, research, and ongoing innovation. Dynamic Planner’s ability to reflect SJP’s risk categories through its platform was an essential factor in the decision.

John O’Driscoll, Divisional Director of Business Development and Advice at SJP, said: “Dynamic Planner’s reputation and shared values around one-to-one advice, combined with their commitment to empowering advisers through the latest technology, makes them the ideal partner as we continue to enhance our adviser proposition.”

Ben Goss, CEO, Dynamic Planner said: “We are proud to partner with St. James’s Place, to support a vital aspect of their advice process. SJP’s dedication to client-centred advice mirrors our own commitment to empowering advisers with technology that engages clients and demonstrates adviser value. As the UK’s leading digital advice platform, this partnership reinforces our capability to deliver scalable solutions configured to our clients’ advice policies.”

Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading risk-based financial planning system is now risk profiling Albemarle Street Partners’ ASPIM Growth range on its platform.

The ASPIM Growth range consists of 11 distinct portfolios – ASPIM Growth 2 – 10, ASPIM Growth Equity and ASPIM Growth Unconstrained – that are designed to align with various risk profiles and have targeted return and volatility objectives.

Albemarle’s investment approach is guided by a strategic asset allocation framework, ensuring portfolios align with clients’ risk parameters. Using a data-led process and insights into inflation and interest rates, the team tactically adjusts asset allocation to maximise return potential.

The team blends quantitative analysis with deep industry experience, engaging extensively with fund managers and conducting thorough research. Albemarle maintains a sharp focus on cost efficiency, only selecting active managers with a strong conviction in their ability to deliver long-term outperformance.

Yasmina Siadatan, Chief Revenue Officer at Dynamic Planner said: “We are delighted to welcome the newest MPS partner to Dynamic Planner – Albemarle Street Partners. Advice firms will now be able to recommend ASPIM Growth range on the Dynamic Planner platform with precision accuracy. Following the data being sourced directly from the manager, and processed by our proprietary asset risk modelling team, it is then displayed with a risk profile number in the tech, the client app and beautiful client reports.

“Today Albemarle joins the continuously expanding universe of over 900 MPS risk profiled and processed in this way. With the number of MPS on the rise, along with assets in them, we are correspondingly risk profiling a wider universe of solutions, delivering more value in the financial planning process, unlocking capacity and crucially ensuring investment suitability, now and ongoing.”

Eleanor Williams, Partnerships Director at Albemarle Street Partners: “The risk profiling of our ASPIM Growth portfolios by Dynamic Planner further enhances our commitment to providing advisers with robust, risk-targeted investment solutions. Dynamic Planner is an invaluable tool for advisers, enabling them to make informed, risk-aware decisions with confidence. At Albemarle Street Partners, we focus on delivering high-quality investment strategies that help advisers navigate an evolving market while ensuring the best possible outcomes for their clients. The addition of our 11 Growth portfolios to Dynamic Planner further strengthens our support for advisers in achieving client success.”

Albemarle Street Partners is a partner of the upcoming Dynamic Planner 2025 Conference ‘Pioneering Tomorrow’s Technology’ and will be attending the event.

By BNY Investments

Retirement is often portrayed as a time of unambiguous pleasure – long holidays, time with family and friends, the pursuit of hobbies and interests. The reality is not always so benign. While retirees may relish escaping their more difficult colleagues or a tyrannical boss, retirement brings its own pressures.

Retirement is ranked 10th on the list of life’s most stressful events . It can even be hazardous to health. A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that retirees were 40% more likely to have had a heart attack or stroke than those who were still working at the same age . While it is difficult to determine cause or effect, a UK study showed twice the number of retired individuals with chronic conditions such as diabetes, stroke or cancer than their counterparts who are still working .

There are many reasons why retirement might be a difficult time for individuals. The loss of a social network, for example, may play a role. People can become lonely and isolated without the daily routine of going to the office. They also have to adjust to a change in identity and purpose. Shaking off the shackles of a to-do list may sound fantastic, but days with no clear structure may be difficult to navigate. In a British Psychological Society (BPS) survey on retirement, women repeatedly used the word ‘boring’ and complained about the ’emptiness’ of their post-retirement lives .

The approach to retirement will be personal and individuals will vary in the resources they have to refashion their lives, but it is clear that certain types of people may find it particularly difficult. BPS says: “For those whose sense of self is tied to their work identity, retirement can be a daunting prospect. The lack of challenges and excitement that daily work brought to their lives is reflected in loss of self-esteem and sense of contributing to society.”

It is also true that the financial aspects of retirement may be more stressful than for previous generations. Without the security of defined benefit pension schemes, retirees have to navigate investment markets and may have less certainty over the income they can expect. Equally, many retirees will enter their later years with greater debt than their predecessors.

Too much of a change?

Advisers are increasingly finding that these emotional aspects are influencing people’s retirement plans. In the BNY Investment report Retirement Advice in the UK: Time for a Change? one certified financial planner said: “I’m certainly finding more and more that a lot of people are putting it off because they are worried about what’s happening. It’s quite easy to get paid every month, and you see the money coming in, you’ve got that financial security, you’re going to work, and you’ve got a routine. And then all of a sudden that stops. I’ve got all this time in the world, and I don’t know what I’m doing with myself and those people that I know are suddenly disappearing out of my life and my routine’s gone. And it’s massive. I’ve witnessed this a lot more over the last five or 10 years.”

This has financial planning implications as well. A quarter of financial advice professionals surveyed say some of their clients are stepping back into the workforce, and 8% say this is true for the majority of their clients. A fifth of advised clients said they were somewhat or very likely to use retirement lump sums to clear outstanding debts. A quarter of financial advisers had heard similar intentions from their clients. This is changing the type of advice that people need as they retire, and advisers are increasingly finding they need additional skills to help with the emotional side of a client’s retirement as well as the financial side.

Another certified financial planner said: “Twenty years ago, working in the retirement space was quite simple. Somebody had worked somewhere for maybe 30 or 40 years. They were planning on retiring at 65 because they’d had enough, and they just wanted to make sure they’d got enough income. And you just sorted that out. And that was the conversation, really. It was very transactional. It was very dull. Now, you’ve got people coming from all different angles but the general consensus for most people is they just can’t stop doing something. It’s too much of a change.”

A lifestyle plan

The CEO of a small financial planning firm said: “There has been a real shift in the last two or three years, and the way advice is being delivered around being much more about a lifestyle plan, rather than just the numbers.” One interviewee noted that new clients are often surprised by the breadth of the planning conversation, indicating that client perceptions of the advisory process have yet to fully align with advisers’ expanding focus. A strong theme from the in-depth interviews that accompanied the report was that clients needed more support on the wider implications of transitioning into retirement. Advisers are already taking action. For example, some advisory groups are producing guides for their clients to work out their purpose in retirement rather than just presenting them with a financial plan.

Although around half of clients say they are not interested in receiving advice on the non-financial aspects of retirement, that leaves a lot who would welcome support. Advisers say it is a situation that needs to be handled delicately, with many not recognising that it might be a problem for them.

“The trick for us is to not jump in, because it sometimes can be quite an uncomfortable silence, because they don’t know how to answer, they’re not expecting it. And then actually, when they do start to talk, then you get to the bottom of it and they start to open up.”

For some people, retirement will be a pleasure, and those with financial advisers are likely to have greater security than those without. However, retirement is not as straightforward as it was, and the emotional transition may be more complex. Advisers increasingly have a role in hand-holding their clients though all aspects of retirement, not just the financial implications.

Source: Research conducted by NextWealth for BNY Investments, based on responses to surveys with 208 retirement-focused financial advisers and 254 consumers of retirement advice conducted between 9 September 2024 and 21 September 2024.

References:

  1. https://www.stress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Holmes-Rahe-Stress-inventory.pdf
  2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-retirement-good-for-health-or-bad-for-it-201212105625
  3. https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/retirement-health-and-wellbeing
  4. https://bps.org.uk/psychologist/retirement-health-and-wellbeing
  5. https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/retirement-health-and-wellbeing

For Professional Clients only. Any views and opinions are those of the author, unless otherwise noted. This is not investment research or a research recommendation for regulatory purposes.

For further information visit http://www.bnymellonim.com. Doc ID: 2214101. EXP 22 Jan 2026

Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading digital advice platform, has enhanced its market leading Attitude to Risk (ATR) questionnaire with the launch of Financial Personality Insights. This equips advisers with a deeper understanding of their client behaviours, thoughts and emotions around financial risk, unlocking more levels of personalised financial advice than ever before.

Developed by Dr Louis Williams, Dynamic Planner’s Head of Psychology and Behavioural Insights, Financial Personality Insights provides enriched analysis of the core dimensions that underpin Dynamic Planner’s market-leading psychometric ATR questionnaire, originally designed in conjunction with Henley Business School at the University of Reading.

The launch of Financial Personality Insights enables advisers to go beyond calculating a client’s risk profile, to fully understanding what characteristics of a client’s personality is driving their attitude to risk. In line with Consumer Duty, it provides supporting evidence to assist with selecting a suitable risk profile and the most appropriate Dynamic Planner tools to use when explaining the trade-offs between risk and reward. This additional insight can help frame conversations that will resonate with clients, as well as providing a signpost to where coaching would be beneficial.

Financial Personality Insights has a robust theoretical underpinning that is well rooted in the psychology of financial decision-making using the same sound psychometric principles as Dynamic Planner’s ATR questionnaire, which has been completed by over 2 million people*. The five personality dimensions measured are:

Dr Louis Williams, Head of Psychology and Behavioural Insight at Dynamic Planner, said: “Our newly launched Financial Personality Insights is designed to enrich the output from our market leading psychometric Attitude to Risk (ATR) questionnaire. Its key aim being to help frame conversations that resonate with clients and assist with selecting the right risk profile in line with Consumer Duty. Advisers are now able to more fully explore client behaviours, thoughts and feelings towards taking financial risk than ever before.”

Financial Personality Insights use the same data captured from the ATR questionnaire to provide the adviser with more information about their client’s financial personality, enabling them to understand what drives, prevents and enables them to take risk. A breakdown of a client’s financial personality score and additional tips related to this allowing an adviser to have a more informed and in-depth discussion with their client.

Dynamic Planner is the UK’s leading digital financial planning and advice platform supporting 45% of investment advice firms in the UK, reviewing more than £100billion of client assets and profiling more than 1,900 investment solutions from 150 asset managers worth over £280billion each quarter.