Author: Colin St John, Group Chairman
We live in the most financially informed era in history. Yet people feel more confused than ever. The problem isn’t access, it’s overload.
More information hasn’t delivered better decisions. In many cases, it has made them harder. When every app, headline and influencer is competing for attention, people end up paralysed, second‑guessing themselves or reacting to noise instead of acting on what matters.
The average UK adult now uses six financial apps, up from three in 2020. What was meant to simplify money has created a fragmented experience. People jump between apps, dashboards and notifications, each offering a different view of their finances. Instead of clarity, they get cognitive clutter.
41% of people say they feel overwhelmed by financial information. This isn’t a lack of intelligence, it’s a natural human response to too many choices and too much noise. When everything feels urgent, nothing feels clear.
One in three investors admit they’ve made poor decisions due to online noise. Markets move, social feeds react, and people feel pressure to “do something”. But reacting to short‑term commentary often leads to long‑term regret.
54% of adults say they don’t know which financial sources to trust. With thousands of voices, from banks to bloggers to influencers, trust becomes the rarest commodity.
The UK now has over 27,000 financial products available, double the number in 2010. More choice sounds empowering, but in reality it creates decision fatigue. When everything looks similar, people default to inaction or choose based on convenience rather than suitability.
People aren’t short of information. They’re short of filters.
The paradox is clear, people have more tools than ever available to them, yet have never felt less confident using them.
Where We Are Today
For most people, the default setting of the financial system is simple: opt in and don’t get it wrong.
Miss one payment and your credit score drops. Tick the wrong HMRC box and there’s a penalty. Take a short‑term loan “just this once” and the interest snowballs. The system responds to mistakes with punishment, not guidance and it assumes perfect behaviour in a world where perfect behaviour doesn’t exist.
At the same time, we live in a culture built on quick fixes. The 30‑day challenge, the hack, the shortcut, the cheat code. Our brains are wired to prefer the reward we can feel today over the benefit we’ll see in 20 years. That’s not weakness, it’s human biology.
So we’ve ended up with a tug of war:
a complex system that penalises errors
human brains built for convenience
No wonder so many people feel stuck, overwhelmed or disengaged.
Why More Information Isn’t the Answer
For years, the response to poor financial outcomes has been to give people more information. More dashboards. More data, quicker/faster comparison tools, more jargon dressed up as empowerment.
But information alone doesn’t change behaviour. If it did, nobody would smoke, everyone would save, there’d be no need for speed cameras and every pension pot would be full.
People don’t struggle because they lack data.
They struggle because the system isn’t designed around how humans actually behave.
How We Move Forward Together
If “to be human is to err”, then the system should plan for that, not to excuse bad choices, but to support better ones. Imagine financial technology that behaves more like a coach and less like a judge. It notices patterns:
“Your Deliveroo spend rises 40% on Thursdays after 8pm.”
It translates those patterns into meaningful, personal insight:
“Move £25 of that to your ISA each payday and you’re £650 up in a year.”
And then it makes the action effortless: With one tap, habit set, no friction, no shame.
We already do this in other areas of life:
Auto‑enrolment made pensions the default and participation soared.
Seatbelts click in before we think.
Phones remind us to stand, breathe or sleep.
We know people will forget, drift or get distracted, so we design around it.
Finance can do the same. Spot trends, identify opportunity gaps, nudge, don’t punish.
Make the right path the easy path.
This Is a Design Challenge, Not a Willpower Test
The question isn’t: “Why don’t people try harder?”
The real question is: “How do we build systems that meet people where they live?”
Because when support replaces punishment, engagement rises. When engagement rises, outcomes improve. And when outcomes improve, society benefits, employers, policymakers and households alike.
The Role for Policymakers and Employers
This shift won’t happen by accident. It requires leadership from the institutions closest to people’s financial lives.
Policymakers can:
Encourage design standards that prioritise behavioural insight over complexity
Incentivise tools that support long‑term financial resilience
Reduce penalties that disproportionately harm those already struggling
Employers can:
Embed financial wellbeing into workplace culture
Offer tools that simplify, not overwhelm
Provide guidance that is accessible, human and judgement‑free
The goal isn’t to make people experts.
It’s to make good decisions easier and bad decisions harder to fall into.
A Future Built on Support, Not Shame
We have the technology. We have the behavioural science. We have the evidence that nudges work and complexity doesn’t.
What we need now is alignment, a shared commitment to designing a financial system that works with human nature, not against it. Because when people feel supported, they participate. When they participate, they progress. And when they progress, we all move forward.
People don’t need more information. They need better guidance.