The UK retail investment market is continuing to evolve at a rapid pace despite the expected decade-long deleveraging of households and the malaise afflicting the broader British economy.

Advisers and service providers may be under notable margin pressure and despite the ongoing timeline of regulatory change and regulator sabre rattling – not to mention the economic realities of doing business in Britain in 2011 – it seems the sector is changing for the better and adopting a more market-led approach.

The future in this sense looks bright.

However, this isn’t the case for everybody, as we all know that in life, not everybody gets to go to the ball.

Despite the aforementioned flurry of evolution (there are now more than 25 retail investment platforms in the UK) much of this has been spawned by groups playing catch-up at the cold realisation that business models, which thrived in the 1980s and 1990s, are becoming less and less viable today.

This has put many of the large traditional life companies in the UK out of kilter with the direction the market is moving.

Of course, few if any of them are standing still and feeling sorry for themselves, they are jumping through hoops in a bid to reinvent themselves and push new initiatives, such as corporate wrap in the group pension space and/or retail wraps in adviser-land in a bid to grab a slice of the highly competitive UK wrap market.

While all this is happening, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) – keen to be seen as more effective than the light touch approach prior to (and some say partly resulting in) the financial crisis – is trying to dilute the punch, turn down the music and kill the party’s buzz.

A party is probably the wrong choice of descriptor. Most of the change across product providers is largely being driven by necessity and in some cases desperation at the fear of being left behind.

Competition is intense.

Meanwhile, the regulator has to make judgements left right and centre as it tries to keep an even keel on matters. And regularly speaks out (fires a warning across the bows) of certain parts of the industry in a bid to keep them in check.

However some rulings, such as a banning cash rebates on wraps, flabbergasts industry participants as they are interpreted by those in the market as being anti the spirit of the Retail Distribution Reform (RDR) – the reform the regulator is chiefly driving.

To complicate matters, the rise of comparison websites and other relatively new forms of distribution continue to muddy the waters as a number of the large insurance groups – seeing their traditional business models become outdated – are buying these businesses.

It seems web-based technology, as in many other industries, is driving the great leap forward in financial services.

However, technology alone will not win the race.

The defining success stories are going to be those technology solutions that facilitate exceptional service and client experience – and given the track record of financial services in the UK – the role of the adviser will remain a key ingredient as to who gets an invite to the ball and who doesn’t.