Patrick Mill, Wealthtime CEO

For professional advisers only

Happy New Year! As we welcome in 2025, it’s fair to say that the end of 2024 was action-packed from a political and regulatory perspective.

In my Q3 update, I thought about what changes might come in October’s budget. In the end, much of the pre-event speculation didn’t materialise. While the impact of IHT on farmers has grabbed the headlines, the inclusion of pension wealth in inheritance tax calculations is likely to have a greater effect on financial planning clients in future. You can read more of our thoughts on the budget announcements here.

We also had the Mansion House speech in November. Pensions again were in the spotlight, with plans to consolidate the UK’s numerous defined contribution schemes into a handful of ‘megafunds’. The belief is that fewer, larger funds will deliver better value and better outcomes for savers. At the same time, the Chancellor believes consolidation with help drive economic growth, with megafunds more able to invest in long-term, large-scale investments. These ‘productive investments’ in assets like infrastructure, research and development and technology need access to significant funds to allow a percentage to be tied up for several years without creating issues with meeting liabilities. While using mega pension funds in this way has certainly proved successful in countries such as Canada and Australia, how easily it can be replicated within the UK’s fragmented DC scheme landscape remains to be seen.

In December, the FCA launched its pensions advice guidance boundary review. If implemented, the proposals would make bold changes to the support that providers can give consumers while they are building pensions wealth and in the run up to retirement. Targeted support can not replace the full benefits of holistic financial advice, but by helping improve complex retirement decision-making, it has the potential to widen access to meaningful support and ensure more people who don’t currently work with a financial adviser will have better outcomes in retirement. However, the proposals are not without risk: how firms create their consumer segments and communicate the difference between full advice and targeted support will be crucial to success. It will be interesting to see the regulator’s next steps.

The quarter also saw the results of the US election, with Donald Trump taking a decisive victory in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. During his campaign, Trump made several statements on the changes he’ll make once he becomes the 47th President of the United States. It would take a braver man than me to try to predict exactly what he’ll do next, but it seems likely that a great deal of focus will be on driving US economic growth, through tax cuts, deregulation or tariffs – or a combination of all of them – with potential repercussions for the rest of the world. You can read more about the possible impact of the Trump Presidency on investments and the outlook for 2025 from our colleagues at Copia, here.

What’s on at Wealthtime

It’s been an eventful quarter for Wealthtime too. In October, we announced the continued evolution of our business through our long-term partnership with global business processing company Wipro and our global technology partner GBST to deliver a market-leading, digital-first platform and innovative customer-centric service offering.

Wipro has extensive experience in operational excellence and digital transformation, employing  260,000 people in 65 countries across industries including Aerospace, Automotive, Healthcare, Oil & Gas, and Retail as well as Financial Services. In the UK, it employs 5,000 people, with financial services accounting for 65% of its business here. We are really excited about the opportunities this partnership brings and expect Wipro’s proven operational expertise across multiple sectors to bring new insights to the platform space, helping us create a best-in-class experience for advisers, their clients and our team as well.

At the same time, our existing relationship with GBST means we can fast-track our proposition development through an accelerated upgrade of the Wealthtime platform to the latest version of Composer later this year. This will deliver significantly enhanced platform functionality based on GBST’s market-leading technology, allowing us to introduce many new features alongside Wealthtime’s existing bespoke functionality.

We’re currently putting plans in place with Wipro and GBST and will set out a more detailed schedule of activity for our customers in the coming weeks.

To add to the excitement at Wealthtime, we were delighted to win Leading Retirement Proposition at the Schroders UK Platform Awards 2024 in September. Decumulation and retirement advice have been a big focus for advisers in 2024. Many firms have told us they are reassessing their retirement propositions following the FCA’s thematic review of retirement income advice. We are committed to delivering the best possible retirement options and have been working hard to support advisers in finding the right solutions through our Rethinking Retirement events, so we’re particularly pleased to be recognised for the breadth and flexibility of our proposition.

At Wealthtime, we’re certainly set for a busy 2025, and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you successful and prosperous year ahead too.