The Week in Brief – 06 July to 10 July

Schroders agrees to sell its UK financial advice business, Benchmark, to European wealth giant Söderberg & Partners as part of a major strategic shake-up. The transaction allows Schroders to streamline operations and focus its wealth ambition entirely on high-net-worth clients via Cazenove Capital. Wealth management chief Oliver Gregson highlights that Schroders will maintain a strong route into the UK adviser market by acting as a long-term investment partner to Söderberg.

Tesco Insurance partners with Aviva to launch free parent life cover, playfully targeting the UK’s protection gap down the supermarket aisles. The initiative offers parents £15,000 in free life insurance per child under four for a full year. Tesco partnership director Ban Mahsoub highlights a hassle-free sign-up with no medical forms, making it simpler for new families to build financial resilience while picking up their weekly grocery shop.

Hargreaves Lansdown boosts its executive leadership squad by poaching two heavy hitters from Vanguard to spearhead its digital future. Charles Thompson joins as chief technology officer alongside Michael Finnegan as chief transformation officer, with both arriving in September. Outgoing chief executive Richard Flint explains the move aims to fuse the platform’s massive UK scale with valuable lessons from the US market, wishing departing tech and strategy bosses well.

Gen Z leads a massive UK shift towards investing, injecting £25bn in new inflows as over a third buy in during the past two years. Vanguard’s inaugural report reveals a tech-savvy generation, with a third choosing cryptocurrency for their very first investment. Head of Vanguard UK Ben Summers highlights a huge wave of future savers poised to join them, prompting the firm to launch simplified, targeted guidance to boost investor confidence.

Financial advice suffers from a design flaw rather than a client engagement issue argues NeuroFinance founder David Devine. The industry frequently blames savers for ignoring lengthy reports but the actual culprit is built in implementation friction. By redesigning the advice journey to slash cognitive load, a move inspired by neurodivergent client needs, smart firms can banish paperwork stress, simplify complex decisions and help everyday people easily turn plans into action.

Senior executives routinely ignore their own retirement planning, leaving sizeable pots languishing in workplace default funds, warns 7IM boss Dean Proctor. While generic investment glidepaths suit the average worker, they scale back market risk far too early for wealthy clients, damaging total returns. Advisers must step in to challenge this dynamic, transforming an overlooked workplace pension into a fully tailored strategy that builds maximum wealth for a brighter financial future.

Financial technology specialist EV appoints Chet Velani as chief executive officer, charting a bold new chapter for the firm. Velani’s remarkable rise from graduate trainee in 2008 to managing director, and now CEO, mirrors EV’s own expansion to supporting a quarter of the UK adviser market. Working alongside founder Bruce Moss, Velani focuses on deploying advanced software and AI to make hybrid financial planning accessible to millions more everyday consumers.

A new Mattioli Woods study reveals that nearly two-thirds of over-55s witness messy family inheritance feuds, yet the vast majority still stubbornly prefer passing on wealth after death. While bitter legal squabbles over estates remain remarkably common, worries about skyrocketing later-life care costs now comfortably eclipse inheritance tax fears. Wealth management director Adeline Christy advises that structured lifetime gifting can soothe tensions, helping planners keep the peace across generations.

The FCA crackdowns on investment platforms by proposing a strict ban on “double-dipping” on client cash. Under fresh rules, firms can no longer cheekily charge administration fees on cash balances while simultaneously pocketing the interest earned. Consumer investments director Lucy Castledine urges platforms to swap complex jargon for plain English, aiming to boost investor transparency and ensure savers finally understand the exact pounds and pence they pay.