Welcome to the summer newsletter. The first which comes to you in the era of the FCA’s new Consumer Duty.
The Consumer Duty has been described as the biggest shake-up of financial services regulation in a decade. The Consumer Duty will set higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and require firms to act to deliver good outcomes for customers. We are proud that in keeping with this ethos, our members already agree to abide by the Council’s standards and protections that go above formal regulation.
Naturally, the Council has been working hard to help our members prepare for it. We believe our principles and outcomes-based standards, introduced in January 2020 represent the ‘gold standard’ for later life financial advice. We have again updated our standards to take account of the Consumer Duty so if any members haven’t read it already, do read our latest Loop (36), which will explain more.
There’s also a reminder here of all the other resources we have produced to support members. Keeping on the Standards theme, we caught up with the chair of the standards committee, Michelle Highman in our Focus On feature. I think this is a fascinating article and shares insights into Michelle’s financial services background, her important role as CEO of the Money Charity, the UK’s Financial Capability charity and her motivation to be the chair of our important standards committee. I didn’t realise Michelle was such a fan of the Exeter Chiefs rugby team!
As this newsletter reaches you many of us will be digesting the Q2 market data. Like the rest of the mortgage industry, equity release has felt the impact of higher rates and falling consumer confidence.
However, we see positive indicators such as rates narrowing between residential mortgage rates and lifetime mortgages, steady growth in new customer activity in Q2 with June the busiest month of the year (with estimates that new customer levels increased by around 23% from April) and inflation, although stubborn gradually coming down.
I am confident that the long-term drivers for equity release remain strong and financial and legal advice remains vitally important to help customers understand their retirement funding options. Don’t miss the commentary on the Q2 data, from some of the industry’s leading experts, here.
Elsewhere in the newsletter, we have been taking a deep dive into the Northern Ireland market, gaining insight from both equity release advice and the legal perspective. You can also read all of the regular features in the newsletter, including updates from the Council including a public affairs update, media update and Council news, and take the opportunity to see who has recently joined the Council in the new member article.
This month saw the ‘launch’ of our inaugural Adviser Summit, which will be held in Manchester on November 15. The Summit will be free to advisers and we are prioritising places for Council members, so please visit the dedicated website and book your place today. Our Equity Release Summit in Westminster was over-subscribed this year, so please register early! Find out more about the event here.
