In the financial services sector, compliance is king.
Adherence to the myriad rules and regulations is, of course, non-negotiable: sanctions, fines and reputational damage all potential and unwanted consequences of a failure to do so.
The FCA Consumer Duty Act 2023 – introduced in late July this year - affords financial services customers a new and welcome layer of protection but places new demands on businesses to which it applies.
Described as one of the biggest shake-ups to retail financial services regulation, it seeks to ensure customers receive 'good outcomes’ and that businesses provide evidence that those outcomes are being met.
Specifically, customers must be sold products and services that meet their needs and offer fair value; receive related communications they can understand; and get the customer support they need, when they need it.
As is now so often the case, it is in the contact centre where much of that compliance bites. Smart technological tooling can help, as can a consultative expert hand to hold. Deploy both, and financial firms are well-placed to succeed.
All they and their technology providers must do is pick the right partner.
“It’s important new legislation, but in simple terms it’s actually all about improving customer knowledge and, in turn, the customer experience – and that means everyone wins,” says Ben Booth, CEO at leading UK-based CCaaS provider MaxContact, whose smart platform’s speech analytics and topic detection functionality can help enable that critical new compliance.
“No-one is saying the new Act is not a good thing, it’s just a case of businesses aligning the available technology with their internal processes. They can then start to really listen to their customers and ensure they are providing them with the right products and services.”
Among other things, the Consumer Duty Act compels financial services providers to interact with particular customer groups in particular ways and seeks to ensure those customers are appropriately and transparently matched with products, service levels, and communications capable of delivering ‘good outcomes’.