Publications & Research

A global research report examining how AI is being adopted in financial planning, highlighting key trends, benefits, risks, and future skills needs based on insights from over 6,200 financial planners worldwide.

This report presents key findings from FPSB’s 2023 Value of Financial Planning consumer research in Ireland, showing how working with a CFP® professional improves financial confidence, wellbeing, quality of life, and long-term financial outcomes.

FPSB’s submission to IOSCO shares global survey insights on crypto, complex products, gamification, and fin-fluencers, showing many retail investors are self-directed and suffering losses without advice. It recommends stronger safeguards and tighter oversight of financial influencers and platforms.

This FPSB summary report highlights key findings on crypto-assets, gamification, social media influencers, and complex products, calling for stronger regulation, clearer product classification, and improved consumer protection to reduce investor risk and promote responsible financial advice.

This FPSB submission to IOSCO addresses retail distribution and digitalisation, highlighting risks and opportunities from fintech, social media, and gamification. It recommends stronger disclosure, client-first advice obligations, improved financial literacy tools, higher competency standards for marketers and influencers, and safeguards to protect retail investors and build trust in digital financial markets.

FPSB Europe’s submission to the European Supervisory Authorities supports stronger, clearer, and more consistent ESG disclosure standards to help retail investors make informed sustainable investment decisions. It emphasises client-first principles, transparent reporting, standardised templates, improved governance disclosures, and collaboration across the financial ecosystem to build trust and comparability in ESG products.

FPSB Europe’s submission to the ESAs supports updating the PRIIPs KID to make disclosures clearer, more comparable, and more useful for retail investors. It advocates machine-readable KIDs, faster implementation, clearer cost presentation, inclusion of past performance and replacing complex probabilistic scenarios with simple illustrative scenarios to reduce confusion and improve investor understanding.

FPSB’s submission to the OECD supports stronger national financial education strategies and highlights the importance of combining financial literacy with access to professional financial advice. It emphasises improving consumer confidence, protecting vulnerable groups, and helping people make better financial decisions through education, guidance, and public awareness initiatives.

This FPSB guidance note helps financial planning professionals identify and support vulnerable clients by providing practical best practices to protect clients from financial harm, improve communication, and ensure ethical, client-first financial planning outcomes.

This FPSB Europe position paper outlines recommendations to strengthen consumer protection and professional standards in financial advice and financial planning across Europe. It calls for client-first obligations, clearer oversight of financial planners, and recognition of high competency standards to help consumers access trustworthy, high-quality financial advice.

FPSB’s submission to IOSCO addresses the risks of retail OTC leveraged products such as CFDs, forex and binary options. It calls for stronger consumer protections, including client-first duty of care, clearer risk disclosures, limits on leverage, negative balance protection, and restrictions on aggressive marketing, while highlighting the role of qualified financial planners in helping investors make informed decisions.

FPSB Europe’s submission to ESMA calls for stronger protections for retail investors trading high-risk products such as CFDs and binary options. It supports tighter leverage limits, clearer risk warnings, restrictions on aggressive marketing, negative balance protection, and higher professional standards to ensure client-first advice and safer investing.

This report shares key findings from FPSB’s global survey on senior investor vulnerability, highlighting common risks such as fraud, mis-selling, and financial abuse. It also outlines recommended measures to better protect seniors, including stronger client-first advice standards and improved education and oversight.

FPSB Europe’s response outlines how fintech is improving financial planning and advice while calling for strong consumer protection. It highlights the need for clear rules on robo-advice, data security, and algorithm oversight to ensure technology benefits consumers and maintains trust in financial services.

This article explains how fintech and robo-advice are transforming financial services, highlighting both the opportunities of digital innovation and the risks for consumers. It also explores why the future of financial planning is likely to combine technology with personalised human advice.

This FPSB research report explores how fintech and automated advice are reshaping financial planning worldwide, highlighting trends, opportunities, risks, and recommendations to ensure technology supports client-first, professional financial advice.

FPSB Europe shared its views on automated financial advice, supporting innovation while calling for strong regulation, transparency, and consumer protection. The submission emphasizes that robo-advice should meet the same standards as human advice and complement, not replace, professional financial planners.

This annex summarizes FPSB’s detailed responses to ESMA’s six consultation questions, outlining recommendations to strengthen adviser competency standards, promote client-first practices, clarify the distinction between sales and advice, and enhance investor protection under MiFID II.

This FPSB Europe submission to ESMA’s MiFID II consultation provides recommendations to strengthen knowledge and competence standards for investment advisers, promote client-first professional practices, and enhance investor protection across European financial markets.