As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, financial advisers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their retirement income advice delivers good outcomes for clients. The FCA’s Consumer Duty and the Retirement Income Advice Assessment Tool (RIAAT) have sharpened the focus on suitability, sustainability, and personalisation in decumulation advice. But with the right tools and support, advisers can turn these challenges into opportunities to deepen client relationships and deliver lasting value.
Understanding the Regulatory Framework
The FCA’s Consumer Duty requires advisers to “act to deliver good outcomes for retail clients,” with a particular emphasis on understanding and evidencing client needs. This is where the RIAAT comes in. Developed during the FCA’s thematic review of retirement income advice, the RIAAT provides a structured methodology for assessing the suitability of advice and disclosures. It encourages advisers to segment income needs into three categories:
Essential income: Covering basic living costs.
Lifestyle income: Supporting a desired standard of living.
Discretionary income: Funding aspirational or non-essential spending.
This segmentation is not just a compliance exercise—it’s a framework for truly knowing your client. Advisers must demonstrate how they’ve assessed income sustainability, capacity for loss, and the client’s changing circumstances over time.
The Role of M&G in supporting advisers
Recognising the complexity of this environment, M&G has stepped up with a strengthened retirement proposition designed to help advisers meet regulatory expectations while focusing on what matters most: their clients.
At the heart of this is the launch of the Prudential Guaranteed Income Plan. Available for new clients of the Prudential Retirement Account and across selected SIPP providers, the plan offers a guaranteed income stream that can be tailored to meet essential or lifestyle income needs. It’s a powerful proposition for advisers looking to provide certainty in an uncertain world.
Complementing the plan is the PruFund range, a smoothed investment solution that helps reduce the impact of market volatility. By combining the Prudential Guaranteed Income Plan with PruFund, advisers can construct hybrid income strategies that balance security and growth potential—freeing them to spend more time understanding their clients’ evolving goals rather than reacting to market noise.
It’s important to remember that the value of your client’s investment can go down as well as up so you might not get back the amount you put in.
Click here to learn more about M&G plc
