The case for reform of the Pension Freedoms is growing with news this week that hundreds of thousands of consumers are taking money out of pensions and most likely shovelling it into low interest bank accounts.

The news this week that the FCA will commission an independent report into its handling of the LC&F mini-bond scandal is not an admission of guilt but it is perhaps the first sign that regulation failed investors who had the misfortune to use this company.

Our story this week about the Treasury’s record IHT tax grab in the past year is a worrying portent of things to come, I fear.

I’ve felt for a long time that what the fund management sector offers, and Financial Planners and advisers in turn recommend, is often far from what investors want to buy and two surveys this week back up that view.

One of the greatest challenges for Financial Planning in the long term is how to reach the millions who have never heard of Financial Planning or have only a vague idea of what it is and its value. The estimable Pete Matthew, an entrepreneurial Chartered and Certified Financial Planner, may be showing one important way forward.

Financial Planning Today’s story this week revealing that more than 600 ‘ambulance chaser’ firms had applied to the FCA for authorisation will have sent shivers down the spine of many planners, IFAs and wealth managers.