The Financial Conduct Authority has identified the 'provision of advice' as one of two new priority areas it will focus on in the year ahead, weeks after the watchdog and the UK Treasury proposed a string of changes to how financial advice is disbursed.

The Financial Advice Market Review, which started in August 2015 and concluded in March, looked at ways to make advice in the UK more accessible following the government's changes to pensions legislation and concerns that there was an 'advice gap' when it came to areas such as pensions, which is another of the regulator's priority areas.