Within its 2021 / 22 business plan, as part of its data strategy, the FCA committed to become a data led regulator and to become more innovative, adaptive, and assertive. This strategy was further supported with the appointment of a chief data, information, and intelligence officer, Jessica Rusu, whose role is to lead the transformation of the FCA’ s ability to analyse and use the data and intelligence collected to efficiently and effectively oversee the firms it regulates. The FCA’ s data-led approach is now a regular feature of its communications with firms.

We’ ve seen a recent increase in the number of FCA surveys, including the one already issued on the Retirement Income Advice Thematic Review, and information requests aligned to ongoing advice services, a wealth managers and stockbrokers survey and a forthcoming adviser and intermediary survey to be issued this year. These surveys provide a large source of data and metrics for the regulator- and the industry- which, in turn, can be analysed and published to allow firms to benchmark their services against others in a way which should help demonstrate the delivery of good customer outcomes.

Paul Bruns, Compliance Director, Simplybiz

The introduction of the Consumer Duty requires firms to harness the benefits of data to track performance, identify areas of concern, improve their services, and understand the outcomes they achieve for their customers. The ability to analyse this data allows for proactive measures to improve customer outcomes and reduce potential consumer harm.

Whilst this may mean different things for different sectors, for intermediaries, the need for accurate management information to support data driven decisions has never been more important.

Whilst it can be frustrating and time-consuming, we know the FCA will be monitoring submissions and looking to identify trends. Good quality regulatory reporting should keep you out of the supervisory spotlight. With this in mind, we thought that it would be an opportune moment to highlight some of the key areas in which data and MI can support intermediaries in their objective to deliver good consumer outcomes.

Ongoing reviews

The delivery of ongoing reviews is a current hot topic but having a strong MI base can support a firm’ s regulatory responsibility in the delivery of these services. Typical MI that can be recorded and analysed includes:

• The number of clients signed up for ongoing reviews

• The resource required to deliver these reviews

• The number of clients that have received the contracted number of reviews

• Number of reviews overdue, and by how long

• Number of attempts made to deliver the reviews

20 | The Adviser