Targeted Support is Live. Now Comes the Hard Part.

The FCA's Targeted Support regime went live on 6 April 2026, and it is genuinely good news. The authorisation gateway opened in March, firms have been applying for their variations of permission, and the regulator has made clear it wants authorised firms to be bold. After years of consultation and careful framework-building, momentum is finally here.

The FCA estimates around 23 million consumers are currently underserved by the markets for advice and guidance. Targeted Support is designed to start filling that gap, allowing firms to deliver tailored suggestions to groups of consumers with shared characteristics, without the full compliance burden of regulated advice. Done well, it could genuinely change how millions of people engage with their pensions and investments.

But here is the challenge worth saying out loud: authorisation alone does not close the advice gap. Getting a Variation of Permission is the starting line, not the finish.

For Targeted Support to actually work, two things need to happen that the regulatory framework cannot mandate on its own. Consumers need to engage with the support being offered, and they need to genuinely understand it. Those are not the same thing, and both are harder than they look.

The Royal London launch is a useful early signal here. They were the first firm to receive regulatory permission and have launched their Targeted Support ISA service through their mobile app, not as a document or a letter. It is a digital, interactive experience. That is a deliberate choice, and it matters. It signals that the firms taking this seriously are thinking about how consumers actually absorb information, not just what information to send them.

That point deserves more attention across the industry. Targeted Support is not a new type of letter. It is an opportunity to rethink how financial information is delivered. The most effective implementations will use engaging, personalised formats that meet people where they are. Generic, static content that looks like everything else consumers already ignore is unlikely to produce the outcomes the FCA is looking for.

The FCA's own rules require firms to demonstrate consumer understanding, monitor outcomes, and show that their Targeted Support is delivering a better position for the consumer groups they serve. A formal post-implementation review will follow within two years. And as the suggestions firms deliver become more complex, the importance of checking understanding before a consumer acts will only grow. It is not enough to deliver information. Firms need confidence that the individual actually understood it and felt in a position to act.

This is where the industry has historically struggled. Research shows 76% of individuals report difficulties understanding pension communications. Targeted Support adds a regulatory permission. It does not automatically fix the underlying communication problem.

This is the problem that Video Canvas from FCX Technologies was built to solve. Video Canvas delivers personalised, interactive video experiences that adapt dynamically to each individual's data, so every viewer receives a communication built around their actual situation. The built-in recap game captures individual-level evidence of comprehension, with question responses and completion data flowing directly into the firm's own infrastructure, without any customer data leaving the firm's estate. We have seen this work in the pensions sector, where increases in consumer understanding as high as 44 to 88% have been recorded when comparing Video Canvas experiences to traditional paper communications. Research shows 78% of people said they were inclined to engage and consider making changes to their pension after watching a Video Canvas experience.

This is still early days. The firms going live now will learn a great deal from their first cohorts of users, and those learnings will shape how the market evolves. The formats, the journeys, the ways of checking understanding, all of it will be refined. That is as it should be. But the firms that build the right foundations now, with communications designed to engage and evidence designed to demonstrate comprehension, will be best placed to demonstrate good outcomes when the FCA comes to review.

The regulatory permission opens the door. What walks through it has to actually help people understand their options and feel confident acting on them.

If you are working on a Targeted Support proposition and thinking about how personalised, interactive video experiences could support your consumer communication strategy, get in contact with us.