The Financial Conduct Authority is launching a review into how firms treat vulnerable customers, fulfilling its commitment it made in 2017.
The review will look at whether firms’ understand consumer needs and whether their staff have the necessary skills as well as product and service design, communications and customer service, and whether these support the fair treatment of vulnerable customers.
In a statement issued today (March 15) the FCA said: "We'll also look at the outcomes consumers in vulnerable circumstances receive and whether they’re as good as the outcomes of other consumers.
"We'll conduct consumer research as well as gather information from firms and consumer representatives to make this assessment."
In 2017 the FCA indicated it would conduct a review looking solely at age-related issues.
It re-committed to doing this once more in 2021, when it published its guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers.
But the regulator has now said it will look more broadly at how firms treat customers, including the elderly, in vulnerable circumstances.
The FCA’s financial lives survey earlier this year revealed around half of all UK adults are vulnerable in some way.
