Customer vulnerability

It’s always exciting when a film crew arrives at the offices.

Last Monday morning, we welcomed a team from our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who interviewed Nick for a new project launching their work on customer vulnerability.

The video featuring Nick was published this morning.

Nick is joined by other industry leaders – the FCA’s Martin Wheatley, Barclays’ Ashok Vaswani, Nationwide’s Graham Beale, MoneySavingExpert’s Martin Lewis and Macmillan Cancer Support’s Lynda Thomas – talking about the way in which our profession should be leading the way in which vulnerable customers are dealt with.

Here’s the video.

We are very proud to be a part of this important project, which is calling for regulated firms to review their approach to customer vulnerability.

We agree with the FCA that the UK’s aging population, as well as changing trends in public health and society, means that developing more inclusive policies towards vulnerable customers will become increasingly important.

The FCA’s analysis shows that it is not just those people who experience sudden life-changing events that regulated firms need to consider when developing their strategies for working with vulnerable customers. Consider these facts:

• One in seven adults has the literacy skills of a child aged 11 or below (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills)

• 7.1m UK adults have never used the Internet, over half have a disability (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills)

• 800,000 people in the UK are now living with dementia, this is expected to double over the next 40 years (Age UK)

• The number of people aged over 85 is predicted to double in the next 20 years (Age UK)

• Almost half of UK adults do not have enough savings to cover an unexpected bill of £300 or more (Money Advice Service).

We look forward to seeing how this important project evolves and will continue to ensure everyone here at Informed Choice works hard to generate better outcomes for vulnerable customers.