A firm's culture has to be set from the top of the business, according to Steven Levin, chief executive of Quilter.
Speaking at 'Boring Money’s Consumer Duty – The Sequel' event last week (September 12), Levin discussed how firms are moving ahead with consumer duty and what the major challenges are.
“I think the CEO has got to lead the culture,” he said. “In a consumer duty world, it is something that's embraced in the business that way.
"From our perspective, as providers, we don't think that it's something that is different to the way we operated in the past or anything like that.
“However, there's clearly a huge focus and it is a next level.”
He explained that one of the challenges with implementing the duty is embedding it into the culture and making it a part of the process.
Kevin Doran, managing director & chief investment officer at AJ Bell, also agreed that the duty had more of a culture focus.
“It’s probably culture to the industry at large,” he said.
“For the people in the room, I think we'd all get the same response. It doesn't feel like a step change for us as organisations.”
Doran explained that one of the ways he implements this culture is through a debrief from himself - which is never forget whose money you are looking after.
“We've been given the trust to look after people's money.”
He provided the example of new staff in medical or legal professions where they have to vow on the day that they enter that industry that they will do no harm.
In the same way, Doran said he asked his staff to undertake an oath to act in the best interest of the customers and never forget whose money it is.
Data
Levin also discussed the types of channels Quilter has, for example their own advisers and outside IFAs.
“We have all the data,” he said. “The problem actually is doing stuff with that data because it's not in a spreadsheet that you can analyse and interpret.
“We're talking about finding ways to distil the data in a way you can actually analyse and interpret.”
He explained that with Quilter’s own advisers, the firm has data but with its IFAs, it is a bit more difficult as it isn’t as tangible.
“It is a labour intensive process of triaging things, but we've got a lot more work to do for both our own efficiency and automation benefits and our ability to make that better, but in IFA land, we don't get the reports and in fact, the IFAs don’t want to share them with us.
“It’s not about data I don't have, it is actually about how to turn the data into an answer and make it valuable.”
The panel members were also asked about how the costs of delivering consumer duty for their business in the first 12 months stacked up against the benefits it delivered to customers.
