Glossary · UK
What is Advice/Guidance Boundary Review?
An FCA and HM Treasury review of the dividing line between regulated financial advice and generic guidance, aiming to make it easier for firms to give consumers more useful help with pensions and investments.
Full Definition
The Advice Guidance Boundary Review (AGBR) is a joint FCA and HM Treasury project examining where the legal line should sit between regulated financial advice — which requires a full assessment of an individual's circumstances, comes with strong consumer protections, and carries significant compliance cost and liability for firms — and simple guidance, which can only give general information and cannot recommend a specific product or course of action to an individual. The review responded to long-standing concern that this binary boundary was too rigid, leaving a large 'advice gap' of people with modest pensions and savings who receive no personalised help at all because firms are unwilling to offer full advice at a proportionate cost, while fearing regulatory or legal risk if their guidance strays too close to advice. Its main practical output has been the introduction of 'targeted support', a new intermediate category of help, alongside clarified rules on 'simplified advice' for straightforward decisions, both designed to let firms — particularly pension providers — help more customers make reasonable decisions without a full advice process.