Mergers

The government plans to merge two financial bodies in an attempt to provide a more accessible financial guidance service. The two services they plan to combine are The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) and the Money Advice Service (MAS) and they predict this will happen as of April 2018. The two services are currently free for consumers.

MAS has faced scrutiny for what the industry considers to be unacceptable spending on senior personnel and marketing. The proposed merger will reportedly eradicate much of that biased spending, and while it is not yet clear to whom the new body will report, it is said that it will be much more closely managed and examined going forward.

The intentions of providing a more accessible advice service for those who cannot afford to pay for it are good. Hopefully it will prevent consumers from missing out on valuable benefits or making the wrong decisions that mean they are worse off. But we will have to wait and see how the government handle the logistics of this when the time comes.