Okay. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's Wealth in Focus. It's so great to see so many of you here on a rainy Friday morning in London. I'm joined by Doug Brown, CEO of the Insurance, Wealth & Retirement, and Michele Golunska, Managing Director of Wealth. If you've attended one of our In Focus events before, you'll know that they're designed to give you a deeper look into different parts of our business. At our half-year results in August, we set out our vision for the next 5-7 years, including our capital-light growth platforms. Wealth is central to that story, and so it's the focus of today. I'll start by putting wealth in the context of the wider Aviva Group, explaining why the opportunity is so compelling and why we are confident in our ability to win.
Doug will talk about the wealth market, the progress we've made, and how we are positioning Aviva for the next phase of growth. Michele will bring that to life, showing how we are converting our strengths into results for customers and shareholders. Of course, there'll be plenty of time for questions at the end. But before I hand over to Doug, I want to set the strategic context. There are four things that we want you to take away from today. First, the opportunity in wealth is huge, and Aviva is uniquely positioned to win. Second, with wealth, we are unlocking Aviva's customer advantage with strong foundations. Third, new technology is creating even more exciting opportunities for us to grow. Finally, we've made a lot of progress since our last Wealth in Focus in 2023.
We are well on track for GBP 280 million profit by 2027 and greater than GBP 500 million by 2032. We are highly confident in our organic growth potential beyond, including with Direct Wealth. Turning now to the opportunity in wealth and why Aviva is uniquely positioned to win. The U.K. wealth market is already GBP 2.7 trillion in assets. By 2035, that is expected to reach GBP 7.5 trillion with a profit pool of around GBP 10 billion. We now manage GBP 261 billion of wealth assets. We have outperformed the market on net flows and assets growth, and we have strengthened our positions across our key growth businesses. Aviva is already the U.K.'s number one wealth player overall, number one in Workplace, and number two in Adviser Platform by net flows. We also see significant potential in Direct Wealth and have a strong in-house advice capability. But this is about more than scale.
We have one of the biggest customer franchises, one of the most trusted brands in U.K. financial services, and a scaled, connected wealth offering that can support customers throughout their lives. Our real strength is how all of this works together. Our customer relationships help us grow, our digital journeys help us to serve customers more efficiently, and our marketing expertise helps us reach them with the right proposition at the right time. That combination is increasingly difficult to replicate. Moving now to our key competitive advantage, our customers. Aviva has 22 million customers in the U.K. with around GBP 1.6 trillion of investable assets. That gives us a platform for growth that is unique to Aviva. Workplace is our acquisition and engagement engine, and with 5 million customers, we can build long-term relationships. So take a typical 43-year-old Workplace customer.
Today, they may have a Workplace pension with Aviva and a home or motor insurance policy too. Over time, they will need help investing, access to advice or support as they reach retirement, and eventually help turning their savings into an income. The real power of Aviva's model is that we can help customers with all of these needs and more, creating a connected experience for them and a deeper relationship for us. The same principle applies to our corporate customers. We support 26,000 U.K. corporates with Workplace schemes. These are often the foundation of a broader corporate proposition, and a 1/3 of these customers already have two or more policies. Let me give you an example of one FTSE 100 company. A relationship built over 20 years now spans a GBP 1 billion Workplace pension scheme, group life cover, health, and well-being services.
We have spent years putting the building blocks in place to serve our customers across their lifetime financial needs. We have built MyAviva. We have created a single view of the customer, and we have invested in the marketing technology to connect customers with the products and services that they need. That takes time, it takes investment, and it takes expertise. One of the advantages of Aviva's scale is that we have been able to invest for the long term and bring in talent from other industries, such as the retail banks and fintechs, to help create something that is difficult to replicate. We are building on these foundations, making sure our digital assets are ready for a world where large language models play a much bigger role in how customers access financial services. Turning now to the exciting opportunities with new technology.
Artificial intelligence will play a much bigger role in how customers manage their finances. Large language models are becoming a key channel for accessing financial products, new propositions are emerging, and business models are evolving. But people still need a regulated platform to execute transactions. Within this regulated market, scale will matter more than ever, and we expect the market to consolidate around fewer, stronger players. For some businesses, those changes will be very difficult to navigate. For Aviva, they play to our strengths and create opportunity. We believe our combination of customers, data, technology, and expertise give us strong moats, so we can shape the market rather than simply responding to change. We are already turning these opportunities into action. We are transforming with AI and building a future-ready business. Let me pause on Direct Wealth.
This is a large and fast-growing market, expected to triple over the next decade as customers manage more of their financial lives digitally. With our unique advantages, the foundations that we have built, and the technology that is now emerging, we believe that Direct Wealth represents a significant growth opportunity for Aviva, and Michele will come back to that shortly. Let me bring all of this together. Over the last three years, we have delivered significant growth in our Workplace and Adviser Platform businesses, and we have built capabilities in Direct Wealth and Advice. The performance momentum in our leading businesses means that we are well on track for GBP 280 million of wealth operating profit by 2027. We now have even more conviction in our ambition for greater than GBP 500 million by 2032.
We are going to continue investing in our organic growth potential beyond this, including the opportunities in Direct Wealth, Targeted Support, and advice. Let me hand over to Doug, who will take you through the progress that we have already made and how we see the next phase of growth unfolding across the business.
That is great. Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. What I would like to do now is share the excellent progress we have made and why we are increasingly confident in the trajectory of this business. This is a much stronger business since our last Wealth in Focus. As you can see, we are extending our number one position in U.K. wealth with GBP 261 billion in assets at the half year. We are capturing a disproportionate share of new money coming into the market. Nearly GBP 30 billion in flows organically over the last three years. Well ahead of every major competitor shown here. We are leading in our Workplace and Adviser Platform businesses with platforms for growth in Direct Wealth and advice. Three years ago at our last Wealth in Focus, we set out ambitious plans for this business, and we are delivering against them.
We said then that we would generate at least GBP 280 million in profit by 2027. Today, we are well on track to hit that target, and it is the same story of strong momentum across assets, flows, and customers. This is growth well above the wealth market. In 2023, we also shared our priorities to deliver our ambitions. First, to continue leading from the number one Workplace position. Since 2022, we have delivered profit growth of around 20% a year, building on the strength of our scheme wins and acceleration in Master Trust. Second, to outperform in Adviser Platform. We have driven profit growth of around 30% a year, supported by a step change in our competitive position by assets. This growth is built on the strength of our trading. Finally, to round out our connected wealth offering with Direct Wealth and advice.
In Direct Wealth, we have nearly doubled the assets, building on strong sales to existing Aviva customers, and we have made significant progress building our proposition. In advice, we built the connection with the rest of Aviva, with referrals continuing to grow. We have delivered this strong performance while continuing to invest in the business, strengthening our capabilities, expanding our propositions, and building the foundations for future growth. It is not just growth. We have also been expanding margins. Revenue margin pressure is a reality in this competitive market, up to 1-2 basis points of compression a year. However, by investing in efficiency and productivity initiatives, we have lowered expense margins much more quickly.
As a result, our profit margin has increased by nearly 2 basis points since 2023, and we will continue to make progress towards a profit margin of 9 - 10 basis points by the end of next year. That's what genuine operating leverage looks like in practice. Beyond this, we expect further margin expansion as we continue to scale, although the pace will moderate. Let me talk about what drives this progress. First, we're investing with discipline to diversify our revenue streams and capture high-growth opportunities, such as the high-net-worth proposition on Adviser Platform and Direct Wealth. Second, scale matters in Wealth, and we're realizing the benefits. We're leveraging an optimized technology architecture. As the business grows, every pound is more efficient to administer than the last. Thirdly, we're continuing to increase efficiency through automation, AI, and offshoring.
We have the unique advantage of our existing customer base and data, which provides a single view of the customer. This means we can grow without spending heavily to acquire new customers. We see a long runway for growth in the Wealth market with upside potential to current forecasts. Put simply, people need to save more, invest more, and get more help preparing for retirement. Pension contribution rates in the U.K. remain low by international standards. Millions are under-saving, and policymakers are increasingly focused on improving long-term saving outcomes. Measures such as Targeted Support, the Pension Schemes Act, and the Pensions Dashboard all have the potential to increase engagement and participation. Those forces play directly to Aviva's strengths. One of our greatest advantages is our ability to serve customers' financial needs across their lifetime with connected propositions.
We can support customers from their first job through Workplace, help them save and invest through Direct Wealth, meet more complex needs through Advice and Adviser Platform, and ultimately support their retirement through our retirement solutions. That creates meaningful economic benefits. 70% of Direct Wealth sales come from existing customers. We bring in over GBP 2.5 billion of customer pension assets a year through consolidation. We secure around 15% of pension outflows that would otherwise leave the business. We're capturing more of the value chain. As well as platform fees across Wealth, we generate investment fees through in-house asset management with Aviva Investors. Where customers need ongoing advice, we earn fees through Succession Wealth as well. The strength of our Wealth business isn't just the products we offer, it's the scale of the customer relationships we have across Aviva.
We are making the most of the foundations we built. From a single view of customer and our leading MyAviva app to sophisticated marketing capabilities. We have increased our ability to reach customers. 85% of our customers have access to MyAviva, giving us a powerful platform to engage them across products and services in one place. We can now directly contact 4 million Workplace customers to help them save, invest, and prepare for retirement. We are continuing to invest to meet customers where they are. We are about to launch Aviva Wealth on the ChatGPT app, and we're doing a lot to support customers from education and guidance to Targeted Support, which Michele will talk more about. We have already piloted our AI-powered virtual assistants, which will deliver even more personalized engagement and support.
Now, Amanda covered the broader market impact of AI, but let me talk a little bit about the practical impact we're seeing in the business already. We will use AI to improve customer engagement and proposition development, reducing back-office effort in pension transfers by around 50%, and delivering around 50% time savings in quality assurance. The bigger opportunity lies ahead. AI will change how customers discover and access financial products and how they manage their wealth and access advice. It will help us to transform the traditional model to serve more customers and accelerate growth. The role of the wealth provider is evolving, but customers will still need trusted brands, regulated platforms, and support for financial decisions. Aviva is well-placed as that model evolves. To wrap up, we have a business with strong momentum and leading market positions.
We've already doubled profits over the last six years, and we have absolute confidence in delivering on GBP 280 million profit by 2027. We're well on track for greater than GBP 500 million by 2032, primarily driven by momentum in our leading Workplace and Adviser Platform businesses. More importantly, we are also confident in organic growth potential in Direct Wealth and across the rest of our Wealth business that can take us beyond GBP 500 million. The priorities for the next phase are clear. Continue to scale our leading Workplace and Adviser Platform businesses. These are the primary drivers of the GBP 500 million profit ambition. We'll also realize growth potential in Direct Wealth, Advice, and Targeted Support to take us beyond. I'll now hand to Michele, who leads these businesses every day. She will take you through how we're converting those opportunities into the next phase of profitable growth.
Thanks, Doug, and hello, everyone. I'm now going to take you through the exciting opportunity in each of our businesses, starting with Workplace. Workplace is critical for our Wealth strategy, and we've made a lot of progress since our last Wealth in Focus. It's a large, fast-growing business in its own right, and one of Aviva's most powerful ways to acquire customers, engage them over decades, and build broader relationships. Over 5 million customers now have a Workplace pension with us, and we're adding around 200,000 net new customers every year. It's already a major profit engine for the group, growing profit at more than 20% per annum since 2022 on the back of market-leading assets and net flows.
That growth is fueled by the scale of our regular payroll contributions, our new business win rate of 70%, asset retention at 99%, and a growing ability to secure members' assets at retirement or through consolidation. We're the market leader, but we still have room to grow in a market that will ultimately be served by fewer, bigger players. Workplace is a uniquely attractive growth market. It's grown fourfold since 2015, is expected to reach around GBP 2 trillion by 2035, and to more than double again to GBP 4 trillion in the decade after. Crucially, this market is resilient, fueled by reliable recurring pension contributions that hold up through the economic downturns. There's further potential. The Pensions Commission, set up to address retirement adequacy, reports in March, and Pensions UK has proposed raising auto-enrolment contributions from 8% - 12%, which would add further momentum.
This is a growth opportunity that we are well set up to capture. Since the last Wealth in Focus, we have extended our leadership position in the market. We are the standout player by assets and flows, 30% bigger than our nearest competitor, and we have all the ingredients that matter: a strong proposition for members, deep relationships with intermediaries, corporates, and trustees, scale, and thought leadership that really matters in such a highly regulated environment. We have a track record of innovation, whether it is a pioneering guided retirement solution or tools such as our retirement forecaster. We have shown we can turn insight into better outcomes for customers. For example, how choices like a career break can affect future savings. Scale gives us a flywheel. It lets us invest in service, technology, and propositions.
These improvements help us to win and retain more schemes, and that creates further scale, operating leverage, and competitive advantage. A level deeper, you can see we choose to operate only in the most attractive segments. We are number one in the contract market with a 26% share and hold market-leading positions across large, medium, and small schemes. We remain laser-focused on retaining and extending this position. Master Trust remains a growth priority, and we have significant headroom here. The market has grown around 27% a year since 2022. Our Master Trust has grown faster still at around 30%, making us a top-three commercial provider. Including the GBP 8 billion of assets Mercer has committed to transfer under our exclusive partnership, we are fast approaching 10% share. Our focus is on both fronts.
Grow our own Master Trust, where we see real opportunity to bring our market-leading capabilities from the contract business across, and growing with strategic partners. That breadth gives us multiple routes to grow, reusing the same core capabilities across all scheme types and sizes. We have a proposition that works for members and employers, and that makes us the preferred partner for EBCs and corporate IFAs. For members, we combine a leading MyAviva digital experience with a strong investment proposition, financial wellbeing support, and retirement guidance. We held 6,000 retirement consultations last year, increasing member engagement, and feeding leads into our advice business. In the annual NMG survey, intermediaries ranked us number one for retirement capability and innovation. They also ranked us number one for likelihood to recommend, reflecting our capability, Value for Money, and the experience advisors and customers receive.
Our net promoter score tells the story: 42 against a market average of -8. And we have built one of the most respected trustee boards in the market, drawing on careers across EBCs, insurers, legal firms, and industry bodies. Increasingly, the market defines value by investment performance, customer experience, and Value for Money. Aviva has a strong track record in all three. Our investment propositions are central to delivering value for our savers, and here we work hand-in-hand with Aviva Investors. Our two largest defaults, My Future Focus and My Future, hold GBP 51 billion and GBP 37 billion respectively. They rank number two and number three for five-year investment performance amongst funds above GBP 25 billion, the new market minimum from 2030. We also offer choice, most recently launching My Future Vision. That fund has over 20% allocation to private markets and is gaining good traction in the market.
The result, we're a top-rated provider of those funds. 70% of Aviva Workplace schemes choose the fund offered, and that drives 65% of Workplace net flows into Aviva Investors. We combine proven performance at scale with continued innovation and new asset classes to lift member returns over the long term. Looking ahead, let me pause on the Pension Schemes Act. The direction is clear: fewer, bigger, better value schemes from 2030. Aviva is well-placed for every key change. Take the requirement for the default funds to meet a minimum scale. We already meet this, and given their performance, we're already ready for the new Value for Money rules. We're on track to meet our private asset commitments, and we already offer our own flex first, fix later guided retirement solution.
Our clients and intermediaries can be confident we'll see them through the biggest change in the market in a generation and will be there for the long term. I'll close Workplace by looking ahead, where there's no shortage of opportunity to keep growing. We're going after headroom, scaling Aviva Master Trust, and growing with strategic partners, and we're retaining more assets into retirement. We're also capitalizing on Aviva's unique customer advantage, serving more of the saving and investing needs of our customers through Direct Wealth and Advice and bringing the full breadth of Aviva's offerings to our members and corporate clients. Now, let me turn to our fast-growing Adviser Platform. We've developed a real step change since the last Wealth in Focus. Momentum in assets and flows is very strong and we're rapidly building a leadership position.
We've expanded margins and we expect this to continue as scale builds and we add new revenue streams, such as net interest margin on cash and our new portfolio solutions. As a result, we're trebling operating profit since 2023. This strong growth trajectory will continue as we scale, making Adviser Platform a significant contributor to our wealth ambitions. Let me show you how far we've come. We've outperformed the market where several peers have seen significant outflows. We're now one of the two fastest growing platforms, and number one if you look at net flows as a share of the opening assets. This growth momentum means we have already stepped up three places by assets with an ambition to become one of the market leaders. The opportunity ahead is substantial.
With the platform market set to grow to GBP 2 trillion by 2035, driven by advice firm consolidation, rising tax complexity, and the intergenerational wealth transfer. As Amanda and Doug have said, AI is reshaping our industry at pace. We see it as both a disruption and an opportunity. The best advisers will use AI to raise productivity and widen access to advice. Our regulated platform provides us with a natural hedge. However the transaction is initiated, whether by an adviser, a consumer, or an authorized digital agent, the need for execution on a regulated platform will remain. Our growth is underpinned by the strength of our proposition, which is designed to make Aviva easy to choose and easy to use. It works. Defaqto rates us the number one recommended Adviser Platform.
Advisors trust us as a financially strong, long-term partner, ranking us number one or two across brand awareness, trust, and reliability in the latest Investment Trends survey. Our first-to-market asset transition capability is industry-leading, cutting transfer admin by around 80%, a real differentiator for big consolidators. Our open architecture has over 130 integrations into advisor workflows, and we provide access to 90 discretionary fund managers. We are number one for Value for Money too, an increasingly important factor for advisors as it is a key for their compliance under the FCA's Consumer Duty. Together, these give us the foundations for the next phase of growth. Here again, the opportunities are substantial and we are focused on clear priorities to turn our advantages into growth.
We are winning with the big consolidators and the national firms, and we have opened a new revenue stream, launching the Succession Wealth Model Portfolio Solutions onto the platform with more to come. We are expanding into the high-net-worth segment, a fast-growing area driven by rising tax complexity. Our new bond is a cornerstone here and is gaining traction fast. 70% of sales are to new customers. We are building full family linking capability, launching early in 2027 to support families and capture the intergenerational wealth transfer. We are building a low-cost digital-first advice capability. I will come to that in a moment. That brings me to Direct Wealth Advice and Targeted Support. Doug spoke about our unique lifetime model, and Direct Wealth has a crucial role to play here, serving more of the savings needs of our Workplace and wider Aviva customers.
It is early days, but we are already seeing the benefits of this model working. As Amanda mentioned, the direct-to-consumer market is a huge opportunity in its own right. It is growing at 12%-17% per annum, at least trebling over the next decade. This growth is underpinned by structural trends. A growing number of retail investors, consumers increasingly choosing to manage their wealth digitally, and significant wealth being passed on to younger digital-savvy generation of investors. Aviva has a right to win here, building on foundations already in place. Our access to customers, MyAviva, a single view of the customer, and proprietary data. We have proven that we can build GBP 1 billion . Whilst more needs to be done, we have invested in strong foundations GBP 1 billion . Whilst more needs to be done, we have invested in strong foundations.
We have built out a range of products that serve most of our customers' core needs, completed by the launch of our investment range with Aviva Investors that is delivering strong returns. At the same time, we have transformed our customer experience in MyAviva, launched the market's first AI-powered Find and Combine pension service, and as Doug highlighted, we are now making Direct Wealth available through ChatGPT. Of course, there is more to do, with headroom to go after as the broader market and customer needs evolve, and we have a clear roadmap to keep building out that proposition. Most importantly, we have proven we can unlock the opportunity in our own customer base. 70% of sales have been to existing Aviva customers, not only to Workplace members, but also to our motor, home, health, and protection customers who trust the Aviva brand with their financial needs.
Bringing Direct Wealth into MyAviva has made it more accessible and given customers a single view of their wealth, which we use to offer the right solutions for their needs. 10 million Aviva customers now have the contact permissions and the terms of business in place for us to offer that help. Targeted Support will open up this further, letting us act on genuine customer needs with lower acquisition costs and stronger engagement built on existing relationships. From next year, we will enhance our Workplace proposition to offer a range of Direct Wealth and advice solutions. The opportunity ahead is exciting. As Amanda said, technology and AI will drive significant change in Direct Wealth, powering customer decisions, disrupting traditional revenue models, and opening up new asset classes. We see LLMs increasingly used for financial research and unregulated advice. There is a significant opportunity to accelerate our growth.
We can build on our trusted brand to help customers discover and buy through LLMs. We can deliver a genuinely AI-powered, hyper-personalized experience in a regulated environment and keep building modern technology that is ready for agentic trading and whatever comes next. We can move fast, backed by the power of Aviva. Moving now to advice. Alongside digital capability, we believe there is still a clear role for human advisors where needs get more complex. Also, seven in 10 adults still prefer human-led advice. Rising tax complexity is driving demand for tax-efficient instruments such as trusts and bonds, and estate planning now matters more than ever. Succession Wealth, our in-house advice capability, is a central part of our wealth offering, helping us capture value we previously left on the table. Since the acquisition, we have transformed Succession into an effective, scalable business to serve our customers and the broader market.
We have connected advice to Aviva and built a lead generation engine that identifies Aviva customers who need advice and refers them to our planners. We have brought in our own platform and investments. Succession is now number one by flows on our Adviser Platform, with GBP 3.3 billion of assets and a growing share of new money. We have transformed the foundations, integrating the 60+ IFA firms that make up Succession and simplifying our operating model to lift advice productivity 25% year -on -year. Today, we offer whole of market and restricted advice for mass affluent and high-net-worth customers with national coverage. We are now at our target of 225 planners, the right number for the business, with strong advisor retention and technology lifting productivity. We have been ranked number six in the top 100 IFAs in the U.K. by the "Financial Times", a real recognition of our capability.
Looking ahead, our priorities are clear. Scale the referrals from Aviva, capture more of those flows onto the Aviva platform and into Aviva Investors, and step change our cost to serve. The last point is important, and we are doing it with a low-cost digital advice capability. Let me show you how that looks like in more detail. We see a huge opportunity to use technology to lower the cost to serve and make advice accessible to a far broader audience. This new low-cost capability is built around four things: digital onboarding and fact-finding, a goal optimization and cash flow modeling engine, workflow automation, and dynamic recommendations presented live to the client. In short, technology does the heavy lifting that used to make the cost of advice less accessible. The prize is significant.
By bringing the cost right down, we roughly quadruple the pool of Aviva customers for whom advice makes sense, opening up profitable, scalable advice to a far bigger population than ever before. If I take a step back, there's a huge need for support and more guidance in the U.K. The numbers speak for themselves. Over 40% of people are not on track for an adequate retirement, and 83% don't feel confident planning for their retirement. Advice may not be the right solution for everyone. That's why we're working to provide a full spectrum of support for our customers, from full regulated advice at one end, to education and guidance at the other. Filling the gap in the middle is Targeted Support. Free, personalized help that delivers genuine, actionable recommendations and drives better outcomes.
We know that customers trust Aviva when it comes to crucial financial decisions in their lives, and we're already doing a lot to support them with education and guidance. Our Investing Master Plan series generated 3.4 million views, and our new pension savings campaign, The Pensions Playbook, is already exceeding this, with over 3.7 million watching the series since it launched last month. As people turn to LLMs to discover products and get help, we're making sure Aviva's content is accurate, trusted, and highly visible across the channels those models draw from. Strengthening our presence online, including on social media, improves our prominence in AI-driven search, so Aviva appears front and center when people seek help. From there, targeted campaigns, in-journey guidance, and tools such as our retirement forecaster, a new version of which will be released next year, turn awareness into action.
Coming next is a conversational virtual assistant on MyAviva, making trusted information and personalized guidance easier to reach than ever. The Aviva brand is central to this. Customers need to trust both the support and the organization behind it, and they need the consumer protection of a regulated business to act with confidence. Let me finish on Targeted Support, where guidance becomes timely, actionable help. The FCA estimates it should support over 18 million people in the next decade, and as the largest provider of pensions in the U.K., we see this as a huge opportunity for Aviva. We deliberately chose to start with pensions, more complex than investments, but a greater opportunity. Our first journey is already live. It's for customers with legacy pensions who could benefit from upgrading to a modern, more flexible Direct Wealth SIPP. Early results are really promising.
40% more people have taken action to upgrade. Help for people who are under-saving will be delivered in the next six months, and at-retirement decisions will follow soon after. Over time, we're moving from one-off journeys to responsive, ongoing conversations. Agentic Targeted Support built on our knowledge base and surfaced through our virtual assistant. Let me be explicit, it all operates in a fully regulated environment, with actions executed on our Workplace and Direct Wealth platforms underpinned by compliant modeling. That combination of customer reach, trusted brand, and regulatory strength is something no one else can match. Before I hand back to Amanda, I wanted to share a video that brings to life our customer experience in Wealth today and tomorrow.
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[Presentation]
[Presentation]
Well hopefully that brings to life just how compelling our connected wealth offering can be for customers. To conclude, I'm sure that you can see that we are very enthusiastic about what we're already doing in wealth and the opportunities that we have to go after. I'd like to leave you with the key takeaways. The opportunity in wealth is huge, and Aviva is uniquely positioned to take advantage. We have the customers, the brand, the scale, the data, and the breadth of proposition that others cannot replicate. New technology is creating an even more exciting opportunity. Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform how customers access their financial products and manage their wealth, and we believe that Aviva is exceptionally well-placed to lead that change. We are already making strong progress across Workplace, Adviser Platform, Direct Wealth, and advice.
We have built real momentum and an even stronger business than we showed you at our last Wealth in Focus, and we are confident in our ambition to deliver greater than GBP 500 million of profit by 2032 and the significant potential that we have beyond that. I am sure there are plenty of questions for us. Thank you to everyone. We are now going to move to Q&A, so Michele and Doug will join me on stage.
Change of plans.
Right. We will move to Q&A now. If we start with Farooq, please.
Hi. Thank you. Farooq Hanif from JP Morgan. Starting with ChatGPT and AI, what are the economics of that versus going to an IFA? What is the risk that those economics start well, but they could skew against you in the future? What are you doing with other platforms? That is kind of question area number one. Sorry, it is a lot of questions. I realize that. My second question is on the conversion of existing Aviva customers to Direct Wealth. Can you share with us what you are doing with Direct Line customers, and if there is any early signs of positive kind of signals there? Thank you.
Yeah, okay. Michele, do you want to pick up the ChatGPT point? First of all, at a high level on the economics, Farooq, I think it's just a little bit too soon to tell how the economics will develop over time. But I think for certain, if you're not there, and if you're not part of that at the very beginning, then we all know that what happened with price comparison websites was if you took this very sort of holier than thou position of saying, "We're not going to participate," then ultimately you lost out. Right? To be there front and center and to be having the conversations early on, I think was absolutely the right thing for us to do. We've already launched ChatGPT for, as we said, for Wealth, but also for home and for protection.
We're going to have a suite of products. The argument is that, of course, this could potentially disintermediate some of the current intermediaries that sit in between. If we think about PCWs, for example. If a customer has access directly to Aviva via the LLMs and they're not just picking up the quantitative, here's your quote. Let's take motor insurance. Here's your quote. But actually, what's being said about Aviva? What type of company is Aviva? What are the customer chat boards saying? What's the TNPS score? All of those other things. We actually think that we're in a much, much more advantaged position to take advantage of the LLMs. If you had models that relied on the other intermediated situations, I think that you've got to have your front door available for everybody.
The way that we think about MyAviva is that is the front door, and effectively, you can come to us via an LLM, via an intermediary, via a partner, whichever way you like, but we'll be ready for you. I think the economics will take time to develop. I don't know whether you want to just say a little bit more about the app itself, Michele.
Yeah. So I was hoping you'd be able to see it. You can if you do @Aviva. I think you can actually see it in there. But what we're excited about is, as I was saying in the presentations, people are increasingly using, I think over 50% of people are now using LLMs to research their financial wealth situation. So from our perspective, it's really important that we're showing up as a leading Wealth player in helping them. In registering, they can see more about what Aviva can do, and then being able to come back through us. So that, we'll be able to see more on that in the coming weeks, just because I think on a timing position, it is accessible but not completely open. But of course, it follows the other products that we've got on there. So Wealth is massively important in that.
On the Direct Line?
Yeah, I can pick that up.
Yeah.
On Direct Line, we are making really good progress with that, and I am looking at the team that is delivering it as we speak. We are going to give the Direct Line customers access to MyAviva. Once we have got access to MyAviva, we have got the single view of the customer. We have spoken about the single view of the customer a lot this morning, but can I just say, that was super hard to build. It is absolutely fundamental to all of the things that we have talked about this morning. To my knowledge, I do not believe that anybody else has the capability to do that today. The Direct Line customers that also have Aviva products will be on MyAviva by the end of this year. Then we will work at it from there.
Once that happens, they start to get the benefit of the Workplace, any of the discounts that we have if they are Workplace customers as well. Pretty excited about that. I think, again, just the sort of foothills of the opportunity as far as that is concerned.
We said there's 70% of the Direct Wealth customers are internal customers. Half of those are Workplace, but the other half are insurance, motor, home.
That's the big opportunity when Direct Line comes online at Aviva.
Good point.
Yeah.
Andrew Baker.
Oh, sorry.
Thank you. Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs. Two questions, please. First one, on slide six, you show the GBP 10 billion profit pool for the industry by 2035. If I take your GBP 500 million 2032 target and just roll it forward at 10%, looks like Aviva's share is about 6% - 7%. I appreciate you will have a much higher share in Workplace and platform, but given your waterfront offering, the brand, everything you have laid out today, why should not we expect Aviva's market share, that profit pool, to be significantly higher as we think about nine years' time? Secondly, and related to that, is there any inorganic opportunities or areas that you should be looking at to essentially increase that profit pool, and I guess, what do you see the natural market share of Aviva on a medium-term view? Thank you.
Okay. Maybe I will pick up the inorganic and then Doug, do you want to just pick up the first point?
Sure.
Yeah. On the way that we are thinking about this opportunity is, and look, I think this has definitely changed as we have explored the opportunity in the market, is that AI is an absolute game changer in terms of our ability to be able to access customers. Then if we look at the Workplace engine, that combination of the 5 million customers in Workplace, the AI, our ability to access them, the brand, the fact that we have got the single view of the customer. When we look at the inorganic market, we would see that we could probably do that better ourselves by building it ourselves, quite frankly, because we have got a relatively small Direct Wealth business. There is no cannibalization.
We are able to really just build that opportunity, and we have proven the connectivity, as Doug just said, of the Aviva brand from Workplace into Direct Wealth and from other parts of Aviva into Direct Wealth. With AI, with things like Targeted Support, with the whole proposition, we really see that there is a phenomenal organic opportunity for us. Now, of course, in the early years, that is about AUMs and flows, right? I think you have got to expect that, and you have seen that with Direct Wealth, and you have seen that to some extent with Succession Wealth as well. We are building these foundations for the future growth.
We are in a really fortunate position that we have got the Workplace business and the Adviser Platform that are delivering the sort of, they are the workhorses of profit growth, which get us to the point where the other things start to pay off. It is that flywheel of connectivity, Andrew, which I think is what when we put ourselves a cold towel over our head and said, "Right, okay. Let us think about this," we felt that the organic opportunity was actually something that is more than deliverable. If you take what we did with something like Aviva Zero, where we took that from nothing to 1 million policies in a reasonably short space of time, I think we have also got the ability internally to be able to really focus on that. Doug, do you want to pick up the sort of growth point and-
Yeah. On the growth point, obviously we have demonstrated we have outpaced the market in terms of growth up to today, and when we project ahead, we are actually, I think the AUM is going to grow at about 10% or 11%, and the profit pool is growing at 11%. You can see that our ambition is to grow by more than 15%. So we are still outpacing the growth of the market.
William?
Hi, thank you very much. William Hawkins from KBW. Thank you for some great presentations. Could you be clear about what has been different in your experience in the past three years? It kind of stands out to me when I look at the numbers. You have already surpassed what you were intending on funds under management. You are still trending towards the guidance you have given on profit. The implication is, and I guess it may be obvious, you have had some differences in the past three years. If you could kind of talk about that, it would be great, please. Secondly, Doug, I think on slide 13, you made a passing reference when talking about margins that the pace of margin expansion should moderate beyond 2027. That wouldn't be obvious to me because I would have thought you would be getting more economies of scale on that kind of thing.
Why would the pace of margin expansion moderate? Thank you.
Yeah. In terms of what is different, I will let Michele come in in a minute. If we think about the business in 2023, we did not have the strategy to head towards to capital light. We could see the opportunity in the wealth market, but I think the Workplace business was much smaller. The Adviser Platform was not in the position. I think Michele has already talked about the propositional development in the Adviser Platform. I think the biggest difference is really the customer advantage that we can now articulate. The reason that we can do that is because we have been able to connect the whole business, but with the single view of the customer. I know I am going to be incredibly boring on this point, but you cannot take advantage of this proposition if you are dealing in silos within your business.
This is not something that you can put on a slide and talk about. This takes hard work and effort. Creating the single view of the customer took us a very long time. We were very fortunate that we sold the eight businesses for GBP 8 billion. We returned some of that capital to shareholders, but we were able to keep some of it, and that investment went into a much stronger MyAviva platform. We were able to re-platform MyAviva onto a better, more dynamic platform. Also we were able to build a single view of the customer. By centralizing our marketing expertise and bringing in people from banking and fintech, we were able to really capitalize on that personalization. The sum of the stuff that the team are doing today, I am looking at David, who does this on a day-to-day basis, is utterly phenomenal.
The ability to be able, those YouTube, the stuff that we showed there, the 3.4 million views, the 3.7 million views, all of that collateral is aimed at the LLMs pointing to that, so that when customers want to look for somebody, they are attracted to Aviva. The investment we have put into the brand, the build of the Onshore Bond. I am not going to steal all of Michele's thunder, but genuinely-
I'm ticking off.
You're here.
I've just done that.
Yeah. Did I just do that? I'm so sorry. I'm so proud of what the team have delivered, because I think in 2023, a lot of this was about, we could see what was there. Today, we know it. It's here. All of the stuff, by the way, you saw in the video, we've done it. That's not vaporware. That's done. I think we've come on a huge amount. Michele, what have I missed?
I'm just going to give one example.
You're my best salesperson.
I am. I know. Look, you can see the excitement that we have here. It really is about the connection. I'm going to give one example of a connection, which is Succession Wealth, so our advice capability. It enables us to offer that service out to Workplace and Workplace customers. It's offering an additional service for Workplace. The flows that go from that will go pretty much, there's a restricted and there's a whole of market, so not exclusively, but pretty much to the Adviser Platform, and it's utilizing Aviva Investors funds. Whilst if you look at metrics in isolation, they might not tell the whole story.
What we're doing is this connected capability that we've got to continuously go back to the customer, which is serving more of those customer needs for longer, and then driving value into other parts of the group, not necessarily solely into Wealth. The numbers speak for themselves. I think GBP 1.5 billion worth of advice referrals in H1 this year. That's the proof point.
Doug, on the margin?
Yeah. We do expect operating margin to continue to improve. We know that we're in a competitive market, so we do anticipate that there will be revenue margin compression. We sort of say that's 1-2 basis points per year. We do think the scale, and there's more that we can do from operational efficiencies, will more than offset that, which is why we're saying the operating profit will improve. You've got to look at the mix of business, though. Our Workplace business has been around the longest. It's the biggest, from a scale perspective as well. There's still more that we can do for an efficiency, but we've done quite a bit in the Workplace business, and sometimes you're the victim of your own success because of the way the maths work, and you get a very large contribution from that.
But there's still a significant opportunity. You saw on the Adviser Platform, I think we've gone from just under 3 basis points - 5 basis points. And clearly, as we move forward, we think that trend's closer to what we're sort of saying in the 9-10 basis points. And then as we scale up Direct Wealth and the advice, those are higher margin businesses as well. So in the outer years, we think there's some potential upside from that as well.
Tom Bateman.
Hi, morning all. Thomas Bateman from BNP. Honestly, another super presentation. Even the production there is far above your peers, so well done. Just on the consultation or proposal to increase the minimum contributions to 12%, what would that mean for your flows? Because I assume it's not a 50% increase from 8% - 12%, but I do not know, maybe you could get a color of what your underlying contribution rates are at the moment. Just on, I think part of the profit expansion is because of investment spend potentially dropping off. Could you just give us a sense for the scale of that investment spend that falls out, but also the recurring amount of investment spend you need to put into this business?
Okay.
Finally, just very quickly on the Direct Wealth app, how comprehensive is that at the moment in terms of the fund offering and services that you have in that? Thank you.
Okay. Michele, do you want to pick up one and three, and I will get the profit expansion with Doug?
Yeah.
Yep. In terms of the 8% - 12%, it is quite hard to model in as much as it would depend when it happens. So, if it was a staged implementation, clearly it kind of staggered, or if it was a single hit. The other thing to bear in mind on that is many employers offer above anyway. So, it is not a kind of everybody gets an upside. But I think that we believe that it would drive a change of several hundred billion pounds in terms of changes in the market. I am just checking that I have got that. It is not million. Yeah, it is billion.
Yep, billion.
Making sure I've not overstated it. Yeah, into contributions into the market and, of course, we would then see that we'd be working with employers to work that through and calculate. But it would be a significant uplift in either scenario.
On the Direct Wealth app?
On the Direct Wealth app, this is an area where we talked about, I think I said we have a roadmap to deliver. We have been working really strongly on Direct Wealth. We have been looking at developing the app and the capabilities. We talked about bring it into MyAviva and what it can do. We really have a focus in three ways moving forward for the next few years. One is building out the kind of propositional capabilities and trading capabilities that we have. The next one is looking at how we can connect across the group more, so making it easier for Workplace customers, other customers to purchase Direct Wealth propositions, including looking at payroll integration, which is a massive game changer if you can actually do it through payroll.
And then looking at how we are developing those propositions for people who are moving into retirement and getting better digital capability in there. I would say we are not where we want to be. There is much more to do there. We have got a comprehensive plan in place to build towards that. But there is some proposition development we would want to do as well as some digital development. Those are in plan. We believe that will drive out both in terms of internal customer acquisition, but also be more attractive in market.
Yeah. Just to go back, William, obviously, Direct Wealth was something that we did not have in 2023 as well, so we have obviously invested in that. Look, as a group, we spoke in August about the investment that we have, the investment part, so the GBP 450 million that we invest every year on change spend. We have not broken that out by business. But we have said in a number of investor meetings that we have been investing in advice and in Direct Wealth over the last number of years. We continue to make investment in the Wealth business, and that is part of the GBP 450 million. Direct Wealth is an important part of that investment. So, if we think about what Michele talked about, the proposition development, the targeted marketing. But you have also got the wider group investment.
Every time we spend on the brand, that is obviously benefiting the Wealth business. Every time we upgrade MyAviva, that is benefiting the Wealth business, the single view of the customer, the data, the AI. So, there is the sort of foundational points which we made, and then there is obviously the individual things. So, we believe that the investment that is required for the Wealth ambition that we set out today is already reflected in the plans and in the existing group targets. So, we are not talking about additional investment over and above here. But obviously, if we do see that there are compelling opportunities to accelerate that organic growth, then we may invest further. We always want to leave ourselves the optionality to do that. Always, of course, doing that disciplined.
Charlotte is looking at me right in the eye now to make sure that we are going to do this right, with the right return on investment and making sure that there is strategic value. But I think that the investment has been in getting a lot of this stuff done, and now we are going to take some of the benefit of that. Sometimes that comes in flows at the beginning, and then we will come in profit over time.
Andrew?
Good morning. Andrew Crean at Autonomous. Three questions, if I can. Firstly, when do you think Pensions Dashboard will come in properly, and how do you think it will affect you? Secondly, when you look at your legacy business and the amount of outflows each year from the legacy business, how much are you recapturing into your own business, and what are your ambitions there? Then thirdly, coming back to Andrew Baker's question, if you go from GBP 280 million of profit to GBP 500 million, it is a growth rate of 12%. You are saying the market is growing at 10% or more than 10%. You are saying your margins are expanding, which would suggest that you actually believe that your asset growth will underperform the market. Why is that going to happen?
Michele, do you want to pick up the first one and Doug or Michele on the second one on the outflows?
Yeah.
Doug and I will pick up.
We will pick up on the.
Okay. Right. In terms of Pensions Dashboard, we are really big supporters of Pensions Dashboard. We have seen how this has worked in other territories globally. In all instances, it has enabled people to become more connected with their retirement savings. We are very positive to the concept of it. We have connected over 7 million pension records to the dashboard system, which has been lots of fun. What the priority in terms of our plans at this stage is working across the industry, making sure that what is available is safe, secure, and accurate, and well-tested because it is really important that U.K. consumers feel that they can trust the data that is in there. What do we think it is going to do? For a start, it is being talked about this week in the Pensions UK conference as well, but there is still no date.
There will be a six-month notice. We are all holding on with bated breath. We believe it will give great visibility for people to find forgotten pensions, understand the overall pot that they have. It is likely to drive higher consolidation if we look at what we have seen in patterns in other territories. It will also drive more people to understand when they potentially need to seek advice. From an Aviva perspective, we feel that we are well-positioned because we can support all of those outputs. We are also engaging with customers much more fully, as you have heard from what we talked about all the time. Pensions Dashboard just becomes another thing that builds on our engagement campaign, and it enables people to see it in one place.
The tools that we have will enable people to add that data to our modeling, and we will be able to model their whole portfolio for them. That is really positive. We are very positive on that one. I have now forgotten the second part.
Outflow recapture.
Outflow recapture.
Oh, yeah. Outflow recapture. When we last spoke, we talked about one of the things that we were looking to do, particularly with the Succession Wealth acquisition, was to stem outflows. I think at the time, we made an indication around 5%. What we're looking at now is far in excess of that. It is very hard with numbers because, of course, as asset values change, then the numbers change themselves. We are looking at, and we said on the slides, for pension outflows, which are addressable, we are recapturing roughly 15% of that now. We believe that with further engagement, with Targeted Support, there is more opportunity there to help people more. Pensions Dashboard will also bring visibility to people's pensions holdings across the estate. We are really positive about the outflow position, but we are constantly building on this and the customer engagement that we are doing.
The digital estate, MyAviva, is helping with that. I do not know if you want to add anything more on that. No?
No. That is good.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So on the GBP 500 million, we'd greater than GBP 500 million-
Than GBP 500 million, yeah.
-is what we said. Doug, do you want to just talk about?
You were asking about the AUM, is that right?
Yeah.
I'm just saying your ambition is to grow profits at 12% per annum. Your ambition is to grow profits at 12% per annum. You're saying the market is growing AUM at probably about 11% per annum. Given the fact that you hope margins are going up, that would slightly suggest that in your model, your AUM are growing less fast than the market.
Yeah. I think we're growing at 15%, not 12% growth.
Growth.
Profit.
With GBP 280 million -GBP 500 million is-
To greater than GBP 500 million, depending what you say.
Okay. We're actually then talking about GBP 550 million.
But look, no doubt, AUM's an important driver of growth. But the absolute level's obviously impacted by market movements, as well as even the net flows that we generate. We've rather than reset the previous AUM ambition like we did last time, we've embedded our expectations in our operating profit ambition because we think that gives a better indicator and measure of value creation. It takes into account not just the growth in assets, but it takes into account revenue margins, continued investments that we make, efficiency that we drive, and the evolving mix of the business. It doesn't mean that we're not ambitious on the asset growth. Clearly, our focus remains on things we can control, like the net flows, retention, deepening customer relationships, serving more of their needs. If we do that will translate into asset growth, but more importantly, it will translate into earnings.
I think as well, the missing element, Andrew, is we're going to continue to invest in the business. So that greater than GBP 500 million is driven by Workplace and Adviser Platform. We will continue, though, to invest in the areas that Michele talked about and Doug, beyond that, which is the Direct Wealth, the advice, and of course, Targeted Support.
Thank you.
Alexa?
Morning. Thank you for the great presentation. Alexa Psillos from Morgan Stanley. Just three questions from my side this morning. Starting with two on Direct Wealth. If I understand, the market is quite competitive. Can you tell us a little more around your strategy for retaining existing customers and that 70% number that you quoted? Do you offer existing customers any kinds of incentives if they keep their money with you or move their money to you, for example, like a discount on fees? Second question is, I think in the half year 2026 slides, you gave us a number, 30% lower cost of acquisition estimate across home, motor, and protection. Can you give us a similar type of number when it comes to the lower cost of acquisition when you are cross-selling between Workplace and Direct Wealth?
Then the third question is just around the customer's journey from the retirement savings accumulation into decumulation. Can you give us an indication of retention levels, say between your Workplace customers into cross-selling into individual annuities? What is the upside to that opportunity that Guided Retirement could introduce?
Okay. Michele, do you want to pick up one and three? I will have a go at the lower cost of that one, yeah.
Yeah. From a Direct Wealth perspective, our pricing is not any single fee line. We look across the sources of revenue that you can have in there is the platform and administration fees, interest income on cash balances, and then, moving forward, foreign exchange, trading and trading income, and fund and portfolio fees. In terms of how we attract customers from within Aviva, because we engage with them, and we run incentives that are to market as well as internally, as would most people in the market. So we are not running something specifically. We do, of course, have opportunities to introduce propositions at discount if they already have an Aviva product. We see that actually, in Workplace, it is the highest area, from a wealth perspective, where people have a second product, and that product is likely to be Direct Wealth.
So, we can see that there is definitely people are loyal to Aviva and they are attracted by the discount that they can get as being part of an Aviva customer. As I said, 70% of the sales already are coming from existing Aviva customers. The development of the proposition is around addressing many of our core customer needs. In doing that, driving down the cost to acquire is attractive for us. But those propositions still are attractive in the open market. Yes, we are seeing a response from our internal customer base. We are really pleased with that. We are going to continue to do that, and we are going to build digital journeys to make that more attractive for them. I think that is the Direct Wealth one.
Yeah. On the lower cost of acquisition, obviously we are not going to tell you what the actual number is. Good try, though. Just to give you some of the metrics around when we have a multi-product customer. When a customer has more than two products, the retention levels are about 3 percentage points higher. But also the marketing efficiency is obviously really significant because, effectively, you already know that customer, you are personalizing that, so you are much more targeted, so you are not putting a big advert on TV and hoping that some people will contact you. You are basically exceptionally targeted, and the work that the team do is very much about personalizing that marketing so that they can get directly to those customers with products that they want at the time that they want them.
The brand cost spend is obviously spread across a wide range of products rather than just basically advertising for pure Direct Wealth. So, the sort of Here for it all brand spend, which is significant across the group, will be spread across that. Then, I think Michele mentioned it in her session, 10 million marketable customers means that the size and scale of our ability to be able to do this with the size and scale of the wealth opportunity means that there is real significant benefit. So, I have actually got Cheryl and David in the front. Have I missed anything there in terms of points you would make around the marketing efficiency?
No, just really to repeat the first thing.
Can we just give Cheryl the point?
Just really to reinforce the points around the whole system works together in terms of having the data digital marketing working together. Another point to add in terms of multi-product customers, we also see that when we have customers holding more than one product, as well as the 3%-5% higher retention rate that Amanda talked about across the board, we see that their pension contributions are 25%-30% higher. We see as soon as customers take that first act to become a multi-product holder, we see all the other metrics increase quite rapidly after that.
Okay.
The cost to acquire one as an existing customer is, as Amanda alluded to, very low compared to going out and acquiring new customers in the market.
Thank you. Cheryl is our Chief Customer Officer.
Yeah.
Sorry, I should have introduced her. Doug, have I missed anything?
It's me talking.
No.
Okay.
We'll go to Amanda.
Yeah, the third one is about the accumulation, decumulation.
Yeah. Workplace is definitely an accumulation vehicle to date, but increasingly it will become a decumulation vehicle of choice in the market. Income scheme drawdown AUM is set to grow by 20% per annum. Targeted Support will enable us to guide customers earlier towards an appropriate retirement solution. When you hear some of the structural change that we're talking about, guided retirement, helping people convert their savings into a pension, then within Aviva, we will have the opportunity to do that within our retirement solutions business, if they want a fixed income through an annuity, and we already see a very strong flow of internal customers going into those propositions and products. Or we will have our flex and fix approach, which is, we already have a guided retirement vehicle which we launched to market first.
We'll build upon that, and we would expect to see volume flowing through to that because it gives the customers the opportunity to have that drawdown flexibility early years, and some cash for savings. But then it also gives you the opportunity to fix an annuity. I think we will, if your question is will we increasingly see people come to Workplace as an accumulation and decumulation destination, I think we will.
Tom, you're back. Just down here.
Thanks. Can't knock the habit. Tom Imani, Fidelity. Just on the numbers that you provided, I think they all went the operating profit within the IWR segment. I'm wondering what the impact is on Aviva Investors. As I understand it, you're capturing a lot of the assets coming through Workplace, and presumably, there's some operating leverage given the scale of the asset ambition. Could you give us any sense of how big the Aviva Investors profit pool is from the equivalent of the GBP 280 million and GBP 500 million?
No. We're not disclosing the Aviva Investors profit pool. Mark, I'm looking right at you. But obviously, it plays a very important role in our wealth operation. I think we had a stat earlier that said 65% of the Workplace net flows are into Aviva Investors. They run the largest default fund for us. It's greater than GBP 50 billion. We've obviously launched My Future Vision default fund with a higher proportion of allocation to private assets. And actually, a lot of the underpinning of the default fund, the multi-asset funds, actually support our Direct Wealth-
This one.
-solutions. And across that range, I think it's anywhere in terms of 5 basis points - 25 basis points, is the revenue that Aviva Investors would earn. Yeah.
Okay.
That's excluding anything on the retirement side of the business, obviously supporting our annuity business as well, but on wealth. Yeah.
Nasib?
Thanks. Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Two questions on Succession Wealth and one on the app. Succession Wealth, is it going to be profitable this year? Is that still the expectation? On the number of advisers, I think last time you said GBP 500 million. Now you're happy with GBP 225 million. What's changed? Is it just AI making them more productive? On the app, are there any products that aren't integrated on the app? Is there anything that you can't do? The reason I ask is because I've used it a long time ago, and you got to a stage where you had to call someone, and I think Workplace wasn't on it. Of course, Direct Line wasn't on it because you didn't have it back then.
Yeah. On Succession Wealth. In terms of profitability, as Michele said, we've been investing heavily in Succession Wealth, and I think that the progress has definitely been slower than we expected it to be. Obviously, the advantage is that we're going to get a lot more from the advice stuff that Michele has talked about, the role in the low-cost advice, but also the sort of full-fat advice, if you like. I think that that integration of those 60 advisers and everything else has meant that we have invested and we will probably continue to invest. We don't break it all out for you there. In terms of what has changed on the number of advisers, Michele.
Yeah. I think you kind of alluded to it yourself. We're seeing technology increasingly become useful to drive down some of the heavy lifting that would have fallen onto advisers and paraplanners. So, we've got more and better understanding of the volume of inquiries that Aviva will drive through into the business and the productivity of the individual planners and how that operates. So we believe we have a team within Aviva, who also speak to customers on retirement preparation reviews. I think it's a bigger service than perhaps just seeing the Succession Wealth end. So we support customers with retirement preparation reviews, helping them think about whether advice would be appropriate. At the time that that's evolved, we understand that better now, and that maybe makes the leads much more qualified. So 225, we're comfortable.
Look, if we feel that we have growing need, then, of course, we would recruit, or if we felt that there was a geographical aspect that we were missing, a location that we were seeing demand in that would be valuable. We do have, internally, we are supporting colleagues progressing into becoming advisers. So, it's just understanding the flows better, the business, the likely customer pass-through. Productivity has increased. We're using more tech. The new model advice capability will enable us to unlock, open those doors further with fewer planners.
On the app and any products not integrated. If you used it quite a few years ago, I imagine it's moved on quite a bit.
Yeah. If we looked at where we were last time and where we are today, we had, you're quite right, Direct Wealth wasn't there and active, and it's now fully integrated. We also had a Workplace app as well as a MyAviva app, and that's been a really big change for our Workplace members and employers. We are able to use the development, the capability, the strategic investment that we have in MyAviva and bring that to life for our Workplace customers. That has completed in terms of integration. Of course, what it also enables is that single view for the customer, which is increasingly more important as people are trying to understand in one place how to manage their financial needs.
That has taken. We did that pretty fast, but it's still taken over the period of two years from concept to implementation. As Amanda said earlier, these things are not easy to implement. That is showing massive value for us and for members who have now got access to better functionality features that MyAviva can bring.
Okay.
Kailesh?
Hi. Morning. Kailesh Mistry, Bank of America. A couple of questions. The first one is just on the GBP 500 million. To help us understand the operating leverage, what does the cost income ratio look like in 2032? I think it was around north of 75% at the last results. Second one is just around LLMs, AI, et cetera. You talked about operating in a regulated environment. Conceptually, when could a tech-type player build a proposition that gets regulatory approval, so on and so forth? What's a realistic timeline for something like that? I appreciate all the positives Aviva has in terms of brand, product, and history, but just to understand that. Thank you.
All right.
Um-
Do you want me to take the cost income? Obviously, we've disclosed the revenue and the expense margins today, so you can calculate the cost income ratio, I think, from the disclosures that we've given you. I don't have a calculator in front of me, so I'm not going to do it. Obviously, we've shown that profit margins have improved both in Workplace and Adviser Platform. This is by growing revenue faster than the cost. So, you can assume the cost income ratios have also improved.
The point around LLMs and operating in a regulated environment and getting regulatory approval, I think that's all good.
What would they use to transact? Eventually, they've got to get to funds, and they've got to get to a manufacturer. So I sort of think that they are facilitators to us, which help us rather than barriers to us. I do think if you are sitting in a traditional Direct Wealth business today, that is much, much more of an issue, because I think that you are going to have to think about different fee structures and different ways of doing it and different ways of attracting customers, and hence why we're quite excited about the organic growth opportunity. I think that ultimately you have to have customers, you have to have data on those customers, and then you have to have the platform, which has got the products which the customers want. Somewhere along there, you're going to need Aviva to be part of that.
I think that we feel that with the partnerships that we are already starting to build with them, and we have got some others that we are talking to as well, that we genuinely do not feel. We think this is much more about partnership than it is about competition. And in a way, obviously, all these new models, whether they are agentic or the way they are doing, is actually going to be helpful for us to be able to deliver low-cost advice to a lot more people. I think that we feel that is why we are quite excited. I have used the word excited. I am going to stop using that so much about that. LLMs and AI, who knew? Who knew in 2023 that this is what we would be talking about? I think we have got time for a couple more questions, Matt.
Yeah. If we go to Siddarth down the back and then Carl, and then we are probably over, I think.
Thank you. Thanks. Sid from Canaccord. It is just a quick one because there are so many big numbers out there, and they do look very exciting. And I have to say, it is just on this embracing of AI. As it gets better and better, we may even be approaching a perfect market at some point. And I just sort of wonder when and how will you control the risk that goes into perhaps certain assets being suggested as being best, whether it is private debt or crypto or whatever it might be, for you to then say, "Actually, we know the computer says yes, but for our customers, we do not think it is right for it to be in a pension, so we are going to overrule that."
I'm just curious because we can talk about 500, and we can talk about 563, and we can talk about as many billions as we want, but if the market rate underneath suddenly slows down, then even the contributions will slow down.
Yeah. I think Michele has probably got something to say on this.
Yeah.
But can I just start with the rate, just in terms of managing the risk, and then, Michele, you can talk about what could happen in that sort of scenario. The way that we're thinking about this is obviously very much if you're dealing agent to agent or we are building agents that are acting on behalf of customers, then all of the risk framework that we've got in place to manage the individuals within Aviva today will apply, and we're thinking about when an agent is acting in Aviva, how that is transacting is operating within the boundaries that we have set.
I think we're in a good position from that perspective in that we've been working with machine learning models for a very long time, and if you're thinking about those coming out with, whether those are ethnicity or gender or biases, and removing those from the model and making sure that we are doing the right thing for our customers, I think that that's going to be a really, really important foundation here. The application of is this right for the customer, which is exactly as you said. In terms of how that might work in practice, Michele.
Yeah. I think the first thing to say, which is really, really important, is any use of this will always need to meet the same standards that we have for evidence, risk management, and customer outcomes as any of our other tools that we're using, particularly investment tools. We're not changing the risk and customer outcome framework related to that foreseeable harm. Those will still remain. But what we are doing is changing the way that we test, and what the guardrails look like in that. We're using AI to actually simulate customer decisions and test how customers may respond to proposed journeys and products, including point of investment. We're using digital twins, which they replicate the customer personas and then how they would respond. I think what we're seeing is the risk profile remains consistent.
What types of investments we would offer to people would be using the same kind of review. The how they are presented and then the how those guardrails work is what we're investing really heavily in terms of making sure that we've got the right controls in place and always the ability to switch off in the event that we saw some kind of hallucination or something that was not attractive to us and in a very short period of time. It's a really important point, but the risk profile is not changing as a result of us moving into AI. We're just changing how we monitor and execute against it.
Thank you.
I think we'll finish with Carl.
Hi. Thank you. Carl Lofthagen from Berenberg. I have two on the Adviser Platform market. There has been some noise this year from private equity-backed players coming in and acquiring IFA houses and then bringing the associated flows onto their Adviser Platforms. Just wondering if this is a trend you are seeing as well, and then linked to that, if we are to see the IFA market consolidating in the future, does that become a growth opportunity for you? Is it actually a risk? Thank you.
Michele?
Yeah.
There you are. Finish off.
Yeah.
There definitely is consolidation, enhanced consolidation, more consolidation in the adviser market. Actually, the first question I had when I sat here last time we did this was actually why are advisers, why is that happening? I talked to you about actually the market at that point, many advice firms, their founders were getting to a point where they wanted to retire. There is a natural source of retirement firms that are wanting, financial advice firms that are wanting to probably sell, and then there is private equity coming in that was wanting to buy. Where we have seen significant growth in our Adviser Platform is in partnering, being a partner of choice, if you like, for large IFA firms. They often want fewer platforms that they are going to transact with.
Not single deals, but fewer platforms, and they want to have brand, financial strength, broad proposition, excellent service. Service in the IFA market will be something that is an absolute attractor in terms of when you place business, but it is the first thing, if it goes wrong, it is why people leave. From an Aviva perspective, we continue to operate and work with our historical firms, but more we are looking at those strategic partnerships, and we are becoming a natural partner of choice in that way because we recognize the needs of those large consolidators. The asset transition capability that I talked about that we have developed, reducing 80% of the admin load for moving assets, that completely speaks to that space. I would see us as we are well-positioned for that change in that continued market activity.
Okay. Look, thank you. Who knew there would be so many questions? Thank you very much for coming this morning. We will be around, so if you did not get a chance to ask your question, then obviously we will be here to answer that, and you can follow up also with the IR team. Thank you very much.