Ben represents the largest section of UK retail investors. He may have savings or simple investments, but he has limited experience with investment products, trades infrequently and does not follow financial markets closely. He is unlikely to have worked in financial services, and he may be encountering many investment concepts for the first time.

Ben is not a “low capability” customer. In CUE’s calibration work, even the Mass Retail segment was materially more educated than the wider UK adult population: around three quarters held A level or higher qualifications, and nearly half held a degree or postgraduate qualification. The challenge for Ben is usually not intelligence. It is unfamiliarity.

When Ben reads a financial communication, the main risk is that the document asks him to build too much understanding at once. CUE’s calibration work shows that comprehension can break down when important information is carried through long sentences, layered conditions, unfamiliar words, abstract wording, weak signposting or logic that the reader has to piece together for themselves. For Ben, the document needs to make the route through the information explicit, concrete and easy to follow.

Isabel represents customers with a moderate level of investment knowledge and experience. She may hold funds, ISAs, tracker funds or other mainstream investment products, and she may buy investment products from time to time. She has some interest in financial markets and may understand common investment language, but she is not necessarily a technical expert.

Isabel is typically well educated. In CUE’s calibration work, more than 60% of this segment held a degree or postgraduate qualification, and close to nine in ten held A level or higher qualifications. But education and investment understanding are not the same thing. Imogen may be highly capable in everyday life and still need help forming the right mental model of an unfamiliar product.

When Isabel reads a financial communication, she can usually follow more detail than Ben if the explanation is well structured. But CUE’s calibration work shows that understanding can still fall away when several processing burdens appear together: long sentences, multiple conditions, nested explanations, unclear links between ideas or wording that forces the reader to infer the missing step. For Imogen, the document does not need to be over-simplified, but it does need to organise complexity clearly.

Serena represents the smallest section of UK retail investors. She is likely to have a broader range of investment holdings, invest more frequently and take a stronger interest in financial markets. She may have experience with higher-risk or more complex investments and is more likely to compare products, question assumptions and look for the detail behind headline claims.

Serena is very likely to be highly educated. In CUE’s calibration work, more than three quarters of Sophisticated investors held a degree or postgraduate qualification, with postgraduate qualifications particularly common in this group. She is also more likely to have higher investable assets and greater confidence dealing with financial information.

When Serena reads a financial communication, she may tolerate more technical language and denser information than Ben or Imogen. But CUE’s calibration work shows that experience does not remove the risk created by overloaded structure. Sophisticated readers can still miss a condition, timing point or logical dependency when information is packed into long sentences, layered clauses, repeated negatives or weakly signposted paragraphs. For Sophia, the question is not whether the document uses simple language, but whether the logic is clear enough to support accurate understanding.