New vulnerable customer data from the MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS) has revealed that caring responsibilities are one of the most common life events experienced by consumers.
The release of the FCA’s latest Financial Lives survey, which found that 49% of UK adults have one or more characteristic of vulnerability, demonstrates the pressing need to understand customer vulnerability, argues specialists MorganAsh.
We look at how one company, which works in the debt-management space, manages its vulnerable customers on a day-to-day basis – taking the FCA’s principle-based Consumer Duty and turning it into practice.
Maintaining accurate and up-to-date vulnerable customer data is a challenge. Over time, databases naturally degrade, with information becoming outdated because of life events like address changes, marital status shifts, or death. This decay is critical for vulnerable customers. Missing or incorrect data can lead to a loss of contact, potentially resulting in preventable harm and a failure to provide necessary support.
Customer vulnerability specialists from MorganAsh also speak regularly at industry events. View speaking events
How many vulnerable customers should a firm expect to have? The FCA’s Financial Lives survey reports that around 50% of people will be vulnerable at any one time. This seems like too many. Many firms still report single-figure proportions of vulnerable customers, sometimes as low as 1% or 2%. This seems far too few. Why is there such a difference? Why do many firms report such low numbers, and does it matter?
July marks the second anniversary of Consumer Duty, the FCA’s tentpole regulation designed to set higher standards for financial services and drive better customer outcomes.
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.
While there are several different ways to approach consumer vulnerability, one view is that artificial intelligence (AI) will provide the silver bullet which solves the issue. This paper explores those issues and offers some perspective on the AI’s prospects of being the hoped-for panacea.
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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