Over 360 attendees gathered today at Church House in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, for the annual Later Life Lending Summit – a key event for professionals shaping the future of equity release and later life finance.
David Burrowes, chair of the Equity Release Council (ERC), opened the summit by welcoming leading voices from across the global equity release sector.
In his opening remarks, Burrowes emphasised the importance of empowering older consumers.
He said: “All older customers should have access to the right information at the right time […] to access their housing wealth.”
Central to today’s proceedings was the launch of a major new report from Fairer Finance, commissioned by the ERC.
The report revealed that by 2040, over half of UK households are expected to rely on property wealth in later life – a shift that could release over £21bn into the economy.
Delivering the keynote address, James Daley, managing director of Fairer Finance, described the report as a pivotal moment for the sector, adding: “Together we can begin to make progress on the challenges we have been discussing for years.”
Daley stressed the timeliness of the findings, with the launch of the report coinciding with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) announcement of a forthcoming consultation on the mortgage market, thus playing into “the current political and regulatory agenda.”
One of the report’s key policy recommendations was a call for Government action to build more retirement-specific housing and to reduce Stamp Duty for those downsizing.
It also urged greater integration of housing wealth into the Government’s pension dashboards initiative and encouraged financial advisers to embed retirement housing conversations into customer journeys.
The report further called on the industry and regulators to apply the principles of Consumer Duty to ensure later life lending products deliver “fair value” and maintain “standards until it is beyond reproach.”
Daley concluded with a clear mission: “to remove the social, economic, and regulatory barriers […] to raise the standards of living in retirement.”
