When it re-runs this survey – presumably in May 2024 – it will be looking for a sea change in the results and strong evidence the consumer duty is working for advisers, platforms, and their clients.
It is worth bearing in mind the FCA is surveying the full range of financial services firms, not just advisers or those in the savings and investments market.
The first area the FCA looked at was consumer support. Around half of adults said they had not used these support services in the past 12 months, but of those that did, 84 per cent agreed it helped them achieve what they wanted to do.
The main problems that were flagged in consumer support were poor customer service, IT system failure, sales pressure, errors or not following instructions and delays.
The FCA also looked at whether products and services met consumers’ needs and offered fair value. The regulator focused on how easy it was to shop around and compare products.
Although people were comfortable shopping around for insurance products, they were less likely to do it for pensions, Isas or savings accounts.
We bump up here against the FCA’s notion that income drawdown is a ‘product’ you buy after building up a pension, rather than a feature of a pension plan that allows you to access your money.
The final area was communications; although 27 per cent said communications did not help them make a decision, 19 per cent said it helped a lot, and 54 per cent said it helped a little.
The FCA is concerned vulnerable customers struggled more in this area, and will no doubt be reviewing firms’ communications to see what they do, particularly in order to help these consumers.
Confidence and trust in financial services and advisers
The results on how people view the financial services industry are a mixed bag. Confidence in the industry has been firmly stuck at about 40 per cent over the past five years.
More worrying, just over one in three UK adults thought financial firms were open or transparent.
When the FCA explored this theme more in qualitative interviews, people cited past scandals such as PPI mis-selling and the banking crisis. It seems these events are going to live long in people’s memories and there is a mountain to climb to get the general public to view financial services more positively.
However, people were much happier with their own provider. For example, around 80 per cent of people had high or moderate satisfaction with their income drawdown or uncrystallised funds pension lump sum provider.
The FCA went on to ask people receiving financial advice how much they trusted their adviser and how satisfied they were with them. As you would expect the results are more encouraging.
