The head of compliance at Equity Release Supermarket, Chief examiner for the LIBF and member of the Equity Release Council’s standards board shares some of the highlights of a typical week.
Monday
I wear a few hats and one of them is running the technical helpdesk for the Equity Release Supermarket. As usual, by Monday lunchtime I’ve had about half-a-dozen enquiries from our 50 advisers. They’re all experienced advisers but when it comes to technical cases, high net-worth, possible vulnerability or coercion, I’m there for support and guidance.
There’s a case this morning with a lady who is looking to release equity to gift to her sons, to buy a property for their father, her ex-husband and then he intends to pay them rent. The adviser is very concerned that the ex-husband has taken over the conversation and he is being ‘pushy and demanding’. The adviser feels that he may be putting pressure on his sons to influence their Mother.
I suggested that the adviser discuss her own personal situation with him and explain that is she raises equity now and gifts it to her sons, then there may no equity for her own benefit and needs in the future. If she still wants to proceed, then provide her with some basic information on later life lending and then arrange a home visit, face to face and insist that the meeting is held in private. I suggested that the adviser should encourage the lady to take a few days to carefully think about her own personal requirements for the future.
Later in the day, I had two-hour Zoom meeting with the CEO of Equity Release Supermarket as we continue to develop a new digital point of sale system. Exciting times as we have just received the prototype from the web designers, and it is great to see it coming to life. The next stage is to ensure it is robust and will allow the adviser to ask every question in relation to their customers short, medium, and long-term objectives and to personalise and capture the customers voice and aspirations.
Tuesday
It was a 6am start and a visit to our Warrington HQ, the first since lockdown. We’ve got two new starters joining, both experienced guys but before we let them loose on clients we put them through the Equity Release Supermarket Academy. This is a two-week, flexible training plan tailored to their individual needs.
Even though I have been mainly home-based for about 12 years now, it’s been unusual not to visit and spend at least some time at head office over the last few months. Seeing my colleagues was great, even if it was mostly through a window to the adjoining rooms as we are keeping a safe and sensible distance.
The new advisers and I had the large boardroom to ourselves, today and this was after conducting a covid risk assessment to keep all us safe. Unfortunately, there was no ‘normal’ visit to Ariete which is a beautiful Italian restaurant in Newton le Willows. It’s a shame because I like to get to know my new colleagues both professionally and in a relaxed environment.
Wednesday
It was a short commute from the hotel back into the office today, for more training. The training is always thorough with new entrants to ensure they become genuine later life experts, but after the FCA report on equity release sales and the advice process, I’ve been going through our fact-find line by line by line with them. I need to ensure they know where to capture the customers voice as this will help them create a personalised recommendation.
Ordinarily we would get the new entrants to meet the head office team, sitting alongside them, going over the various systems, but fortunately all that training is digital now. It’s not exactly the same but we all feel good to be getting back to some sense of normality.
We were done about 6pm before I head off home. I’m originally from Coventry but home is now in Bishop Auckland in County Durham where I have lived for many years. The views on the drive home are stunning, there’s the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and closer to home Barnard Castle and Teasdale. It’s a long drive after a busy couple of days but it’s nice to be out, especially after we’ve been in lockdown.
Thursday
My first call this morning was from the adviser regarding the lady potentially releasing equity for her sons and ex-husband. Fortunately, she’s had a rethink and it was lovely to hear the feedback from the lady who told our adviser: “You are the first person who asked, what about me?”. If there was ever any doubt that we got the right result, I had the angry ex-husband on the phone f-ing and blinding, ranting and raving, saying our adviser has caused a rift in the family.
We encourage family and friends to get involved and provide support, but he was always just too pushy. Possible coercion is a significant risk, once people become aware how easy it is to raise capital via equity release.
We had our quarterly strategic board meeting where each ‘head of’ reports on their department within the business. Fortunately, the equity release industry is starting to return to BAU, and compliance monitoring and safeguards are slowly returning to pre-covid criteria.
I reported to the board that my focus in quarter three is on ensuring that Equity Release Supermarket comply with the new Senior Managers and Certification Regime. I explained to them that the FCA have introduced a new public directory which sits alongside the financial service register to provide public information on, mortgage advisers and it will be available online from December 2020.
Long Zoom meetings can be tiring, but the tech itself and people’s willingness to use it has been great for me and the team. I am geographically isolated and there’s no doubt the lockdown has been affecting us all, in different ways, so it’s great to be able to zoom in on each other and it is definitely something I will be encouraging when things return to complete normality.
Friday
I had my Equity Release Council hat on this morning when I met two other Standards Board colleagues, Barb Emmett and Liz Murley, over Zoom. The Standards Board recently refreshed and introduced the revised adviser checklist and, following the FCA report, we decided to produce a best practise guide to help advisers, that will sit alongside the checklist.
With my LIBF chief examiner hat on, I am always conscious of ways to help new advisers to the equity release industry and creating a refreshed comprehensive checklist and best practise guide provided by the Equity Release Council is a wise decision and nice timing in light of the FCA report.
One of my favourite Friday jobs is to go through the new business book and customer feedback and then ping out a few emails, updating the wider team and giving credit and congratulating them on what they have achieved. This week I noted that sales volumes are returning to pre-covid performances and even though reporting on sales performance is not really a compliance job, I used to be a sales manager in a previous life and compliant sales go hand in hand.
Me and my wife like to go walking in the Lake District with our dog, Hovis as often as we can but we are also spoilt for choice with some great walks on our doorstep here in County Durham. Pre-covid was a nice meal at the weekend but staying home with a couple of bottles of Shiraz has become the norm over the last few months.
The views of contributors are not necessarily those of the Equity Release Council.
To read a blog from Graham on the FCA’s recent report on the sales and advice process click here.
