33% still see senior management buy-in as the biggest barrier to implementing TCF
9th November 2006One third of delegates responded that the biggest barrier to implementing Treating Customers Fairly within their firms was lack of buy-in from senior management. This was the main message to emerge from the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly Conference during which an audience of 400 financial service practitioners were polled on the barriers to TCF, and how their own firms were progressing with this initiative.
This reinforces the point made in the FSA's progress report in July which found that, in spite of clear evidence of commitment, senior management aspirations had not yet fully permeated through businesses to result in improved outcomes for customers. And although in a further vote 22% of the delegates said their firm is "embedding" Treating Customers Fairly, evidence from the FSA's thematic work, such as the recent update on payment protection insurance, and its work with firms, including recent Enforcement cases, demonstrates there is still much to be done.
Addressing the Conference, Clive Briault, Managing Director, Retail Markets, said that firms and their senior management now needed to push on with their own Treating Customers Fairly initiatives, and measure the impact on consumers.
"We want firms and their senior management to drive through and demonstrate achievement of the six TCF outcomes.
"We want to maintain and increase momentum to deliver the consumer outcomes through the firms we regulate, by regulating those firms in a more principles-based way. Together, we can make a real difference to the consumers of financial products and services."
The Treating Customers Fairly initiative is a pioneering example of the FSA's move towards more principles-based regulation, which focuses on the outcomes to be achieved; the responsibility of senior management to achieve them; the opportunity for firms to do so in flexible, innovative ways; and a focus from the FSA on principles rather than detailed rules. As such, it requires dialogue between all parties - product providers, distributors, customers and the regulator - a recurrent theme in discussions.
