The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA), the cross-industry financial services membership body, is calling on the Chancellor ahead of the Autumn Budget, which is due on 27^th October, to implement four concrete policies that will meaningfully improve consumer financial wellbeing.

These are:

• Support the adoption of Digital Identities. Digital ID allows UK consumers to easily access new digital financial services and transform existing services by creating a single, reusable, secure ID for individuals.  We are calling on the Government to support the adoption of Digital Identities for UK consumers of financial services to enhance engagement between consumers and their savings, plus to grow the FinTech services and wider digital economy, which will build a world class digital economy.

• Increase mass-market access to better quality financial guidance. According to FCA research, there are 52 million adults in the UK, of whom only 4 million received financial advice in the last 12 months. The Chancellor must acknowledge that relying on consumers pro-actively accessing financial advice is not realistic.  TISA believes that consumers need access to free, personalised support from their financial services providers to solve the UK’s “Advice Gap”.

• Improve the Auto Enrolment framework. In 2017 the Government confirmed its ambition to reduce the autoenrollment minimum age to 18 and remove the lower earnings limit, which is currently at £6,240. TISA is calling on the Government to put these agreed outcomes into legislation so that young people can start saving earlier and to ensure low earners are not disproportionately impacted by the lower earnings band.

• Simplify the ISA regime. ISAs are a huge success in the UK, and they have become the savings vehicle of choice for millions of consumers. At present, however, individuals cannot invest in more than one of the same ISA type in a tax year. We call on the Government to scrap the constraint on the number of ISAs that a consumer can subscribe to in a year, allow the permissible assets of ISAs to be extended, increase the maximum age for opening a Lifetime ISA and lower the penalty charge for early withdrawals on the Lifetime ISA to allow consumers to make their money work for them.

David Dalton-Brown, CEO, TISA said: “TISA’s mission is to improve the financial wellbeing of UK consumers. We are calling on the government to make these changes in order to positively influence consumer and business outcomes and bring long-term benefits to the UK economy.

“The Autumn Budget is an opportunity to make long-lasting, meaningful improvements to the wellbeing of consumers across the United Kingdom. This will require a thoughtful, forward-looking and innovative approach to financial services sector.”