CONSUMER DUTY NEWSLETTER

As we know, the Duty is essentially centered on ensuring good consumer outcomes and there are four outcomes that firms are required to achieve: • Products and services: All products and services must be fit for purpose, and be designed to meet the consumers’ needs. • Price and value: All consumers must receive fair value at all times. • Consumer understanding: Client communications must support and enable consumers to make informed decisions. • Consumer support: Firms must provide a level of support that meets consumers’ needs throughout their relationship with the firm. To do this, advisers will need to set out in clear and transparent language to their customers the principles and aims of the product being advised on. This then needs to be demonstrated should anyone in the future pick up the file to understand what has occurred with the customer. Think of it like your math’s homework. There are 10 marks on offer for a question, 1 mark for getting the correct answer, but there are 9 marks available for showing your workings out. Ongoing communication with customers is a relatively new principle in the mortgage market, with the advent of widespread Product Transfers on offer over the last 3 or 4 years from lenders, advisers have a reason to keep those lines of communication open. With Consumer Duty, this now applies more than ever. The use of technology can certainly help here, without having to impede on the day job of advising clients by using automation to correspond with customers about their own particular circumstances, as well as keeping them informed of what the market is doing at all times. One could argue that over the last few weeks, client communication has never been more important and needed. By keeping in regular contact with customers over time, Paradigm firmly believe you can improve the understanding of each client’s needs and ensure that clients are covered when, or if, their situations change. It will be important to be able to demonstrate your continued efforts to contact and review the customers’ needs too. At Paradigm, we have been at the forefront in preparing our firms for the Consumer Duty. Our Consumer Duty Support hub was the first in the market for directly authorised firms, and is made available to all firms, not just those that buy compliance services from us. I understand from conversations with advisers, that many firms have not yet established their plans as yet, and Paradigm are still here to support you in these preparations if you haven’t yet started. Paradigm have an Implementation Plan template, guidance notes and can also provide Consultancy support to assist in the creation and completion of your firm’s plan. Please contact us today and we will do our best to assist – you don’t have to be an existing Paradigm member firm or buy compliance from us already. Similarly, this newsletter continues our consumer duty theme of informing and educating, should you require a more detailed analysis of the legislation, we would encourage you to watch the videos on our Consumer Duty Support hub – we now have a number of videos available including information focused on mortgage and protection firms specifically, and goes into the finer detail about what firms will need to do in order to comply. If you would like to discuss this with us and the support available, please do not hesitate to get in touch. 7 CONSUMER DUTY NEWSLETTER