Navigating Targeted Support
Last year, 7 million adults with over £10,000 in investible cash received no regulated financial advice. Targeted Support is central to the FCA’s effort to bridge the gap between advice and guidance, helping customers achieve better outcomes from pensions and investments. If delivered effectively, it also offers financial institutions a valuable opportunity to build trust and loyalty through more meaningful engagement.
What is Targeted Support?
Targeted Support is a new regulated proposition introduced by the FCA. It will allow firms offering pensions and investments to make specific recommendations to groups or cohorts of consumers. This intervention will direct people within those groups or cohorts to products that will deliver better outcomes for them.
Why Targeted Support matters
Targeted Support has been described by the FCA as a ‘once-in-a-generation chance to deliver substantive change for the next 20-30 years.’ Critically, it’s about mutual value creation. Directing customers to more suitable solutions and products also brings the opportunity for firms to truly optimise the value of the product portfolio and to strengthen relationships with historically disengaged customers.
Explore our insights
Targeted Support: What the experts say
Guy Munton, Ellie Simmons and Jo Cordner talk through the key aspects of Targeted Support and explain why it is such an important and exciting development for the financial services sector in this episode of FS in Focus.
Read moreHow Baringa can help
We provide expert insights from across the market and cross-functional expertise to help you deal with the specific challenges of each phase of your Targeted Support proposition development.
Define your Targeted Support strategy
We will work with your cross-functional stakeholder group to establish the role of Targeted Support as part of your advice and guidance propositions, define key success criteria, quantify threats and top-line opportunities, develop design principles, and create market entry hypotheses.
Map your route to value
We will develop your Targeted Support business case and map your route to value. We will establish business case parameters and required inputs and then work with your stakeholder group to validate assumptions and prioritise use cases.
We have expertise in creating resilient business cases that allow for customer testing and iterative learning.
Organise and execute customer and proposition testing
We will shape the roles and responsibilities of the cross-functional squad established to deliver the pilot, lead and oversee execution, and support evaluation through governance.
Design and implement your operating model
We will define the BAU capabilities required to support use case introduction and the associated roles and responsibilities, organisational touchpoints, and ongoing governance model.
Our experience
With unmatched strategy, sharp policy insight, and proven delivery, Baringa is the go-to partner for navigating Targeted Support.
Driving customer retention for a life and pensions provider
We developed a targeted nurture strategy for a leading life and pensions provider to boost customer retention and value. Using customer profiling, we delivered tailored nudges, campaigns, and calls to action across key scenarios - such as encouraging shifts from cash to assets and addressing low contribution rates - to support improved customer outcomes.
Supporting UK regulatory expansion for a global bank
We supported a major universal bank in expanding its UK permissions to enable broader product distribution. This included managing the full application process, gathering evidence for the proposed UK operating model and governance structure, preparing key personnel for regulatory interviews, and coordinating responses to regulatory feedback and new requirements.
Interpreting regulatory change for a private bank
We partnered with the UK branch of a private bank to assess the impact of updated Product Governance (PROD) rules on its distribution strategy. This involved agreeing enhancements to local processes, controls, and governance responsibilities with stakeholders, and supporting implementation through to final sign-off.
Frequently-asked questions
Want clarity on Targeted Support? Our FAQs break down what you need to know and how you can support customers effectively
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