Advisors call for greater Consumer Duty info

July 12, 2023 by Heidi

Mortgage Advisors

A new survey of mortgage advisors in the UK has found that well over half of them think that they have not been given sufficient information from financial providers about the new Consumer Duty rules.

This survey was conducted by Hodge, a specialist mortgage lender, and saw 150 advisors take part in it. The results show that 61% of them would like to have more information concerning Consumer Duty provided by financial companies, to ensure they are able to comply with the new rules.

However, despite this, 86% of surveyed advisors told Hodge that they have confidence in their understanding of the changed rules, ahead of them coming into force. Furthermore, 73% of surveyed advisors stated that they are completely on top of what needs to be done before the deadline, which is 31st July.

These results suggest the picture is not so gloomy when it comes to advisor awareness of Consumer Duty. 49% of the ones that spoke to Hodge indicated that they were not expecting to have to alter their existing services or products to be in line with the new rules.

On the other hand, 25% said that they expected Consumer Duty to mean changes to their current working practices. Only 4% revealed that they had spoken to specialists to get support in areas that they are not very familiar with.

Awareness of Consumer Duty will be crucially important for those people with a CeMAP qualification once the changes come into effect.