Newsletter - 10,000 members and more good news...

 

Also, we’ve been delighted by the breadth of reaction to the Alliance’s creation and development, including from other professional sectors, such as accountancy and legal services.

 

We’re now exploring how the Alliance can reach out to consumers to promote our profession, improve financial awareness and engagement to seek financial information, guidance and advice.

 

We’ll update you on progress in future months. In the meantime, we would like to draw your attention to these recent developments: 

• Consumer Duty Champions’ Forum – Chair and first event
  We recently announced Michael Lawrence, Principal Consultant at Bovill, as the chair of the Consumer Duty Champions’ Forum. He brings 16 years’ experience working at the FCA, most recently as a Technical Specialist in Consumer Investments supervision, and the first Forum will be Tuesday 19 September.
• New FVT Good Practice Guide – Supporting bereaved clients
  This is the latest in the Financial Vulnerability Taskforce (FVT) series of Good Practice Guides. The first guide looked at divorce and was very well received and we’ve now published this guide focusing on bereavement. It contains over 30 practical ideas on how to support clients before, at and after bereavement.

More details on these initiatives below. Also look out for the free Consumer Duty self-assessment tool from Altus Consulting, it’s designed to help firms benchmark their performance and demonstrate progress over time.

 

Please help the Alliance to keep growing by encouraging all colleagues to join, the more members the Alliance represents attract the larger the influence we can have collectively - and it's free to become a member!

 

Very best wishes,

 

Keith Richards, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Duty Alliance.

Cutting through the Consumer Duty noise; what really matters?

In this first Forum, hosted by Bovill, Michael Lawrence and Chris Jones (Proposition Director at Dynamic Planner) will discuss some of the Duty’s thorniest issues and provide insightful guidance on how to cut through the noise and focus on the things that really matter.

 

The Forum is open to Consumer Duty Champions, Compliance Directors and other Alliance members with an interest in, or responsibility for, Consumer Duty implementation. If that’s not you, please forward this email to the appropriate person and encourage them to join the Alliance.

 

Learn more and register for the webinar.

Consumer Duty and the thematic review: The impact on retirement income advice

What should firms consider as part of the Consumer Duty, and its close relative, the thematic review of retirement income advice?

 

In this 45-minute webinar, Tom Carroll of Legal & General Retail Annuities and Tony Miles MBA, DipPFS, Secretariat of the Consumer Duty Alliance discuss the following points and more:

• Responsibilities of financial advisers and planners under Consumer Duty and the thematic review.
• The future critical milestones.
• Tips on adapting business practices to comply with Consumer Duty requirements.
• Segmenting your target market, creating fair value frameworks, and identifying vulnerable customers.

Watch the webinar.

Consumer Duty self-assessment 

This free tool from Altus Consulting is designed to help firms benchmark their progress on meeting Consumer Duty requirements, assess the maturity of their capability and obtain guidance on good practice.

 

There are 52 multiple-choice questions across five sections, including the four outcomes. Completing the assessment only takes around 15 minutes if you have all the information required.

 

Results are presented as a score out of 100 with a RAG-rated dashboard showing breakdowns for each section, recommendations based on FCA guidance and a comparison against the tool’s average/highest/lowest scores for the industry.

The results are stored so firms can complete the assessment again and again and monitor their progress over time.

 

Start the assessment.

CONTACT US

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