South West Chartered Financail Planners Francis Clark Financial Planning is supporting the Money Advice Service-backed Financial Capability Week this week to encourage more people to seek financial advice and ‘Talk Money.’

Financial Capability Week is an annual event organised as part of the Financial Capability Strategy for the UK. It takes place this week, 13-19 November, and “celebrates, showcases and amplifies” the work underway to improve financial capability and improve financial wellbeing. The hashtag for the week is: #talkmoney

Francis Clark is part of Chartered accountants and business advisers PKF Francis Clark and has annual revenue of £41m and a team of more than 600 people and 59 partners. Its staff have been Tweeting and promoting retirement planning advice in the local community.

A spokesman for the company said: “We have an ageing population in the South West as it’s such a nice place to retire to and live in but so many pensioners, or people approaching pension age, are bewildered by what’s available, confused by new regulations around what they can and can’t do and need expert advice.

“We have been using the #talkmoney hashtag in our communications, such as newsletters, blogs, press releases, social media and so on, to reach working age people who have not yet thought through their plans.”

Francis Clark Chartered Financial Planner and director Gary Quick said: "Knowing how much you need in your pension pot to provide the income you require is an essential piece of Financial Planning we all need to consider. With so many options available, advice gives consumers confidence that the decisions they make are the right ones and are able to meet their needs.”

So far, posts using the hashtags #fincap17 or #talkmoney have topped 1m this week and there are over 100 events taking place across the UK in places such as schools, Citizens Advice and financial adviser offices.

Today 250 delegates are due to attend the flagship event Talk Money Financial Capability Conference on sharing learning and creating momentum on FinCap Week. Speakers include Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion Guy Opperman MP and Money Saving Expert and founder of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, Martin Lewis.

The Money Advice Service is also launching new research on ‘Right Place, Right Time – helping people with their finances when they need it most’.

Key findings from the research are:

• Almost 6 in 10 working adults in the UK are financially struggling or squeezed.
• 3.2m people struggle to keep up with their bills
• 6 in 10 did not seek help with a key financial life event
• The main reasons people didn’t seek help was that they were confident that they could handle it without help (37%) or that they didn’t think it was important (12%).
• In 10% of key life events, people thought they needed help, but didn’t go on to seek it – the key barriers to seeking help were lack of awareness, lack of trust and low self-confidence.