External Engagement
Over the past couple of months, the Council have had useful meetings with the British Standards Institution who, with input from ERC, are revising the Standards of best practice in addressing the needs of vulnerable customers and two constructive meetings with Sir Hector Sants (Chair) and John Govett (CEO) of the new Money and Pensions Service (formerly Single Financial Guidance Body) to discuss both financial inclusion and lending standards. Chris Pond, Standards Board Chairman and Liz Barclay (Independent Standards Board member) attended the March Governance Symposium in Cambridge, where the ERC’s approach to Standards was discussed and Chris Pond spoke at the Credit Week Parliamentary Reception towards the end of the month.
Membership – Standards Board and Advisory Panel
The annual process for seeking and assessing nominations has been concluded and Main Board approval gained last month. We will announce the members of both panels at the AGM on April 24th.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of both the Standards Board and the Advisory Panel for their tremendous support over the last year.
Strategic Review, including a review of our Standards
We have made significant progress with the review and last month provided an update to the Main Board, who confirmed the approach being taken and approved the overarching principles and the required customer outcomes we are seeking to deliver.
We will be discussing the approach with our external stakeholders including the FCA and FOS, consumer organisations and the wider business to ensure they are brought along on our journey. In particular, we need them to understand that the move towards a less rules-based and more outcome-focussed approach is intended to make the Standards more relevant in a growing and innovative market without reducing customer protection. We are also working to develop the detail of any required changes to the Standards themselves over the next few months.
The schematic below, still in draft form, sets out the proposition we are developing.
Complaints and Disciplinary Process
We have now concluded a review of the Complaints and Disciplinary process, and have consulted on the changes with our members during January and February. This consultation allowed the proposals to be taken to last month’s Main Board who approved them.
We will now implement this updated process at an appropriate point in the next few months.
A Working Group led by Chris Buchanan of L&G had led on this with the FCA. We believe that there is an opportunity, as things currently stand, to make the case to the FCA for this to be taken further and the Working Group is to be reconvened.
