Miles

The FCA have published their 2022/23 Business Plan, setting out the regulator’s areas of focus for the next 12 months. So what should the Financial Services industry be working on to stay ahead of the agenda? I’ve identified a few key subjects in the Plan that I think many firms will benefit from tackling head-on…

“They never call back”. That’s the number one most frequent complaint we all hear about recruiters. They get in touch with you about a job, get your CV and then… nothing, radio silence. It’s a cliche at this point and the opening gripe of many an aggrieved LinkedIn post. Open, active communication is absolutely vital…

Consumer Duty is almost here, and more firms are realising that they can’t put off thinking about it until the final rules are announced. We have just over 12 months to go, and most businesses still have a lot of ground to cover to get Consumer Duty Ready. Where Are We Now? The landscape of customer…

A lasting fundamental shift in how we work has taken place since March 2020. There had been a very gradual increase in the prevalence of hybrid and remote work models over the last decade, but the rapid need to get the workforce out of offices and functioning safely in lockdown prompted an explosion of people…

Often in the first months of a new year, we like to speculate about what the key Compliance themes for the coming year will be. The publication of the FCA’s Further Consultation Paper on Consumer Duty in December means that there’s no need for prognostication right now – we can be sure that the new…

Right now, in late November 2021, if you lodge a complaint with a Financial Services business, they have 8 weeks to resolve it before you are entitled to escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The 8-week time frame dates back to the creation of ombudsman services in the UK, and it was originally intended to…

At the end of June 2021, national debt in the UK reached £2.2 trillion – the highest debt-to-GDP ratio (102.5%) that the country has seen since 1961. Amongst individual consumers, FCA statistics suggest that roughly 20 million people have seen their financial situation worsen across that same time period, with 9.9 million seeing an increase in…

The Rising Tide Recent news reports have confirmed that a trend I have seen in the businesses that I am in discussions with, is being replicated across the wider Financial Services and Banking industry; in that, there is currently a huge drive to invest in collections and complaints resources. Why now? It is all to…