According to Ortec Finance, in today’s technology-driven and regulatorily mature environment, the re-entry of high street banks into financial advice could prove to be a rare case of a sequel bettering the original and the numbers behind NatWest’s latest move suggest the market agrees.
The WealthTech company recently delved into banks returning to advice and how it could succeed.
NatWest’s agreed acquisition of wealth manager and financial planning firm Evelyn Partners for £2.7b, one of the largest WealthTech deals in recent memory, reignited debate across the financial advice sector.
Many advisers remain sceptical, and not without reason. Pre-RDR, during the 1990s and early 2000s, UK high street banks were among the dominant providers of financial advice. That era was largely commission-driven, and following the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) in 2012, it ceased to make commercial sense for banks to operate in the space. They exited swiftly, leaving a market dominated by IFAs, wealth managers, restricted networks, and consolidators, it said.
But 2026 is a structurally different environment, Ortec Finance argues. The regulatory landscape has been overhauled. Consumer Duty has raised expectations around fair value and client outcomes, while RDR eliminated commission-based structures over a decade ago. Banks entering the market now do so with stronger governance, transparent fee disclosures, and mature compliance frameworks. Mis-selling at scale is no longer a viable operating model.
Technology is the other critical differentiator. Digital onboarding, automated fact-finds, e-signatures and real-time forecasting tools mean advice can now be delivered at scale in a cost-effective way. Open Banking has further reduced data-gathering friction, enabling faster advice delivery. Banks also hold a significant data advantage, often retaining a lifetime’s worth of client financial history, real-time payment visibility, and family connection data that could feed nudges, fact-finds, and personalised recommendations.
Concerns about banks encroaching on IFA territory are understandable, but Ortec Finance suggests the client bases are largely distinct. Banks are expected to focus on the mass affluent, those with some investible assets but whose needs do not require sophisticated, holistic advice. The introduction of the Targeted Support regime, which permits firms to make suggestions to groups sharing common financial characteristics without crossing into individual advice, reinforces this segmentation.
There will be exceptions. NatWest will benefit from Evelyn’s full-service advice capability, and further bank acquisitions of wealth managers remain plausible. The real challenge for banks, Ortec Finance notes, is not client acquisition, it is serving those clients profitably at scale.
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