Manchester-based wealth management firm James Sharp has implemented the MorganAsh Resilience System (MARS) to assess, measure, and report on their customers’ vulnerability. The move aligns with the newly enhanced Consumer Duty requirements, as the firm seeks to ensure compliance while strengthening customer relationships.
James Sharp, one of Manchester’s oldest financial services firms with over 160 years of advising clients on investments, wanted to improve its existing customer-relationship approach. The firm aimed to upgrade its assessment and recording of vulnerability to provide richer data while assuring adherence to the heightened requirements of Consumer Duty.
Sheriden Davy, chief risk officer at James Sharp, spoke about the need for the MARS platform, stating that while they initially believed assessing vulnerability was straightforward, they soon realized the complexity required an expert solution. “Not only is a binary question worse than unhelpful, to do it properly you need a good degree of understanding, plus a methodology to provide consistency and a way to manage the data – so you can report on it as needed,” Davy said.
The MARS platform simplifies the process of assessing consumer vulnerability by using consumer input to generate an objective measure that can be tracked over time. Its implementation has proved to be more cost-effective, negating the need for extensive training and handling most administration automatically.
Andrew Gething (pictured), managing director at MorganAsh, emphasized the benefits of MARS, stating, “MARS cuts assessment and administration right down, removing much of the need for training, plus doing away with the need to create and maintain cumbersome manuals – and it’s prebuilt, ready to go.” He further highlighted that the benefit-to-cost ratio of using MARS versus a manual approach is around six-to-one.
MARS has also unveiled upgrades, including the ability to trigger appropriate treatments or next steps when customer vulnerabilities are detected. This automation further alleviates advisers’ need to understand the multitude of vulnerabilities and treatments.
Gething added that the use of MARS has allowed advisers to uncover previously unknown consumer vulnerabilities. “Typically, this change is highly appreciated by the consumer – and has got to be good for both adviser and consumer over the long term,” he said.
