Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is promising millions of people help with their pensions under new proposals that include offering access to free, targeted support to allow consumers to make more informed decisions about their retirement.

Laying out the plans on Wednesday evening, the FCA said the proposals were part of a wider review with the government of the boundary between investment advice and guidance, adding that informed investment decisions ensured healthy capital markets.

“We know people find pensions particularly difficult to understand, so we are deliberately starting with this to help consumers with their pension decisions,” said Sarah Pritchard, the FCA’s director of consumers, competition and international.

More than 16 million people in Britain save for their retirement into defined contribution pension schemes, whose value depends on the performance of pension investments.

The regulator said the vast majority of consumers were ill-equipped to manage complex pension decisions confidently and that some suffered from the “Ostrich effect”, failing to ask questions because they feared discovering whether their pension pots were sufficient or not.

Insurers say they would like to provide targeted advice for customers, which they see as a cheaper but useful alternative to full regulated advice. But the FCA on Wednesday suggested that targeted support should be provided by the industry for free.

It pointed out that only 9% of adults had taken full regulated advice in the last 12 months, while its flagship 2024 Financial Lives survey showed that 75% of consumers aged over 45 do not have a clear plan for how to take money from their pension or do not know they have to make a choice.

Under the proposals, firms could identify people drawing down on their pension unsustainably or help consumers who are uncertain about how to take a retirement income, offering bespoke suggestions to specific consumer groups who share the same characteristics.

“This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity and it’s critical everyone across the industry gets behind this theme for the benefit of savers,” said Stephen Lowe, group communications director at retirement specialist Just Group.

“Closing the advice gap by a meaningful amount is realistically likely to be a multi-year project. Targeted support could be a game changer and it’s the service that has generated most optimism.”