There was a welcome pledge from the FCA this week that it would strive to speed up enforcement action in future, despite the challenges. This is promising but I suspect it will be harder to achieve than they expect.

I’m prompted to ask the question posed in the headline after reading several recent surveys suggesting that, given a choice, most people do their very best to avoid taking financial advice.

A major new consumer financial survey has revealed that 24.6m people in the UK have never taken financial advice or guidance with 11m saying ‘perceived barriers’ deter them from seeking advice.