Consumer Duty sets out the task to address financial vulnerability.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Consumer Duty objective is to cultivate good financial outcomes for all UK consumers. Consumer Duty is far reaching and will impact all UK regulated financial services organisations both in terms of internal process and externally, in the way they engage with the market and their customers.
Bringing Consumer Duty to life to meaningfully address vulnerability requires a rich understanding of how vulnerability is lived in all its nuances. This understanding will support sound principles with which organisations can redesign financial service experiences and products.
This is more than designing for vulnerability. This is a unique opportunity to transform all aspects of business to centre around customers.
The Consumer Duty is a shift towards the customer, raising questions across four key outcomes as well as the financial services proposition. It requires the industry to pause and take stock of the role they play in customer’s lives, how they can better sense and meet their financial needs, goals and objectives.
To be authentically customer-centric, organisations must understand their customers. Not just in the sense of a ‘customer’ but in the round, their whole human experience. Their needs, goals, objectives both financial and non-financial. Only with this depth of insight can coordinated and meaningful change happen.
A robust response requires careful coordination across the organisation and will yield a range of positive outcomes not only for the organisation’s customers, but also for the business.
Robust responses to the Consumer Duty should:
- Orient around customer needs, life goals and objectives
- Understand customer behaviour in the market
- Identify vulnerability and the potential for harm
- Build cohesive customer experiences, interventions and business operations to support
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