The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has lowered its annual levy expectation for 2025/26 to £356m.

The FCA is to consolidate its complaints returns in a move which it claims will ease unnecessary red tape burdens on firms.

Almost three in five (58%) 30-to-60 year old investors have increased interactions with their financial advisers in the last 12 months, according to a new report.

The boards of the 120,000 member Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and its subsidiary the Personal Finance Society (PFS) have held a joint meeting this week following the latest in a wave of resignations to hit the PFS.

Financial advisers who are not accredited in family law are missing out on the divorce and separation market, estimated to be worth £500m a year in England and Wales, according to a new report.

Royal London is to acquire UK-based infrastructure asset manager Dalmore Capital for an undisclosed sum.

Inheritance tax receipts rose to £0.8bn in April, a £97m rise year-on-year (14%), according to today’s data from HMRC.

Transact has seen funds under direction (FUD) rise by 8% to £65.9bn helped by market recovery and strong inflows.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) jumped to 3.5% in April from 2.6% in March as a swathe of price increases on everything from energy prices to council tax and private school fees kicked in.

The number of pensioners paying higher rate tax at 40% or 45% has doubled to a million in the last four years.

Four years ago only half a million pensioners paid higher rate taxes.

Nearly 9m pensioners now pay income tax.

In a little-noticed knock-on effect of fiscal drag, these pensioners will also pay extra tax on their savings income and capital gains, according to former Pension Minister Steve Webb.

He warned: “The higher rate threshold has become a real cliff-edge over which growing numbers of pensioners are falling.”

The LCP partner, a former Pensions Minister, obtained the figures from HMRC through an Freedom Of Information request.

Sir Steve said: “There has been a significant increase in the number of pensioners paying income tax at all rates, but the rise has been greatest in the numbers paying income tax at the higher rates.”

He said: “Not only does this mean more tax on things like income from state and company pensions, it also means these pensioners are paying more tax on their savings, as their personal savings allowance is cut, and a higher rate of capital gains tax – a ‘triple whammy’.”

The key figures revealed by the FOI request are:

• The total number of pensioners paying income tax at all has risen by around 2m in four years, from 6.7m in 2021/22 to 8.8m in 2025/26, an increase of nearly a third;
• However, the total number of pensioners paying at 40% or above has doubled over the period; in 2021/22 the figure was just under half a million (494,000) but this year it has risen above the one million mark (1,028,000);
• The proportion of taxpaying pensioners who pay at 40% or more has climbed from around 1 in 14 in 2021/22 to around 1 in 9 this year;

The main reasons for the increase, according to Sir Steve, are:

• The continued freeze in the income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold
• Significant above-inflation increases in the rate of the state pension combined with other inflation-linked pension increases

Mr Webb warned: “What is not commonly noted is that being a higher rate taxpayer – even by just £1 – triggers higher rates of tax on other forms of income.”