MorganAsh, a support services provider to the financial sector, has launched a consumer vulnerability assessment tool.
By providing an objective ‘resilience rating’ similar to a credit score the new tool makes evaluating consumer vulnerability far easier.
Called The MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS), the new tool is designed to help both mortgage advisers and firms meet the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) requirements for understanding and managing consumer vulnerability.
The FCA’s ‘Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers’ came into force in February 2021 and will be strengthened by the ‘A new Consumer Duty’ paper, which is currently out for consultation.
MARS is the very first system providing this type of simple-to-understand rating. While the rating system is simple it is based on highly-sophisticated data. As a result, it has been embraced immediately by St James’ Place (SJP).
SJP is also providing partners with access to MARS to help them identify and better support financial vulnerability among clients.
The MorganAsh Resilience System provides an objective measurement rating like the familiar credit score used by lenders across the UK.
MARS collates information from consumers and their advisers, to calculate a comprehensive ‘resilience rating’. This provides a simple, objective, and consistent way of managing consumer vulnerability.
Resilience focused
Acutely aware of the potential stigma for an individual if labelled as vulnerable, MARS instead focuses on strengths – a person’s resilience. The highly-secure system provides simple ratings which reflect every aspect of a person’s vulnerability or resilience, including health, wealth and life events.
The level of detail collected is tailored to both the stage of engagement and the potential for consumer detriment.
For example, when a client is enquiring about a ‘low-risk’ product, such as life assurance, the level of detail required by MARS is minimal and may be provided by the consumer or their adviser. But for a high-risk or high-value product, such as mortgages and later life lending, a more diligent set of information would be used – with independent verification of that information.
Mortgage and financial advisers can input a client’s vulnerability information themselves. Alternatively, they can ask their client to complete an online questionnaire or, if the consumer is suspected to be vulnerable, can book an assessment of their client to be undertaken by a MorganAsh nurse.
Fintech driven by the FCA’s requirements
The FCA is keen to see firms using processes to support vulnerable consumers and enable them to disclose their needs, so MARS provides a robust, rigorous framework for advisers to achieve this.
The system can be used as a standalone tool or integrated with a firm’s CRM via secure API links. MARS is already integrated with systems from Intelliflo and Iress, with more integrations planned.
MARS is independent of both providers and products and can be used by anyone in financial services, for any product or service. It is an objective measure, and provides consistent and essential evidence of regulatory rigour to compliance teams and the FCA.
Andrew Gething, managing director at MorganAsh, said: “Just as a credit score is used to simply communicate wealth, MARS is used to communicate health and resilience. By using MARS, advisers and firms can simply enter their client’s details, and the tool does the rest. This enables them to focus on what they do best – delivering the best advice.”
Robert Sinclair, chief executive at Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, added: “To meet vulnerability and impending consumer duty requirements, firms need to understand the characteristics of their customers – and be able to manage and report the conduct risk.
“Firms’ progress to-date has largely been limited to subjective individual assessments which risk inconsistency and complexity in recording.
“A move to more structured assessments that can provide consistent and objective data will provide management information that firms can utilise. The resilience rating within the MARS tool would appear to be a positive first step.”
Keith Richards, chair of the Financial Vulnerability Task Force, concluded: “Given the often complex and technical nature of financial planning – which automatically places most people in a position of vulnerability because of knowledge and experience-based dependency – we must do what we can, at every opportunity, to demonstrate and be seen as a trusted ‘safe pair of hands’.
“The current regulatory focus on vulnerability provides a timely opportunity to improve how we can recognise and address vulnerable circumstances, whilst also demonstrating individual care and empathy.
“Good practice principles and the use of fintech, such as the MorganAsh MARS tool, can greatly improve our ability to assess, store and communicate vulnerability across and between organisations.”
Will Hale, CEO of Key – the UK’s largest equity release advice firm – also welcomed the launch.
He said: “Everyone is vulnerable at some point whether due to their health, finances or life events and how this impacts them differs from person to person.
“To ensure that we are delivering the best possible outcomes for all customers, we need to move beyond simply identifying vulnerability and look at the more holistic concept of resilience and how support needs to be tailored according to individual circumstances.
“We are therefore delighted to see the launch of the new MorganAsh service which provides a simple, objective, and consistent way of better understanding an individual’s vulnerability via a ‘resilience rating’.
“At Key, we are committed to helping customers achieve the best possible outcomes and as part of this, we are exploring opportunities to work more closely with MorganAsh in this arena.
“The industry needs more initiatives like this and we would like to add our voices to those of leading figures from organisations such as the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries and the Vulnerability Taskforce who welcome this as a step forward for the industry.”
