Support services provider MorganAsh warns of the increasing risk of AI-enabled customer vulnerability fraud, calling on firms to strengthen processes and move beyond reactive approaches to identifying and managing customer vulnerability.
Pension schemes looking to deliver the FCA’s targeted support will fall short unless they first address significant gaps in how they identify and manage customer vulnerability, support services provider MorganAsh has warned.
Once a vulnerable customer has been identified, what should be done next? What are a firm’s obligations—is it sufficient simply to “tick the box” to confirm that a vulnerable person has been identified, or is further action required?
This webinar looks at the need to monitor customers’ vulnerabilities over time, often in the context of the lifecycle of a product. Few vulnerabilities remain entirely unchanged. Some are transient, some progress, and some can be addressed or resolve themselves. At the same time, individuals may acquire new characteristics of vulnerability.
Customer vulnerability specialists from MorganAsh also speak regularly at industry events. View speaking events
Many firms have historically struggled with collecting customer vulnerability data due to a perceived conflict between the FCA’s Consumer Duty regulations and GDPR. Feedback from firms has consistently highlighted uncertainty in this area, with some even reluctant to collect customers’ vulnerability data at all.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expects firms to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, as defined within Consumer Duty. Central to the Duty is proportionality –which enables firms’ approaches to match the nature of the product or service, characteristics of customers, role in the distribution chain, and size/resources of the firm, all under an objective test of reasonableness.
According to the FCA’s Financial Lives survey, around half of all people are vulnerable at any one time. This seems like a lot – is it accurate? And, if it is so many, what can firms do about it? Many firms are only very identifying low numbers of vulnerable customers – what are they missing?
Elephants Don’t Forget, FWD Consulting, MorganAsh, and the Collaboration Network answer your questions about implementing the FCA’s Consumer Duty requirements on customer vulnerability within your firm.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about how someone is defined as vulnerable; what a vulnerability is. The FCA’s data (confirmed with live data from MorganAsh’s vulnerable consumer management tool, MARS) shows that around half of all people can be defined as vulnerable. Yet others say that they have only a few per cent of vulnerable consumers. Can this be true? Andrew Gething and Johnny Timpson OBE try to dig into the answers.
While people prepare to report under Consumer Duty, Andrew Gething observes that one of the things many companies don’t understand is that Consumer Duty also requires them to report under the Equality Act. The Act has been around for some years, but many haven’t recognised the part it plays in Consumer Duty. Johnny Timpson OBE shares his thoughts.
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