FCA launches guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers
Regulatory Updates | 23/02/21
The guidance aims to drive improvements in the way firms treat vulnerable consumers so that they are consistently able to achieve outcomes that are as good as everybody else.
People can find themselves in vulnerable circumstances at any time. The FCA’s recent Financial Lives research shows that 27.7 million adults in the UK now have characteristics of vulnerability such as poor health, experiencing negative life events, low financial resilience or low capability. Not all people with these characteristics will suffer harm, but they may limit people’s ability to make reasonable decisions or put them at greater risk of mis-selling.
Firms should understand what harms their customers are likely to be vulnerable to and ensure that customers in vulnerable circumstances can receive the same fair treatment and outcomes as other customers. This needs to happen through the whole customer journey from product design through to customer engagement and communications.
