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Protecting consumers in vulnerable situations is a priority for firms and Regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority and ICO, as well as being central to wider legal frameworks.
In our fifth Cohort of the award-winning UK Finance Vulnerability Academy, in partnership with the Money Advice Trust, will once again be bringing this to life across five interactive, practical, problem-solving online workshops, each split into two separate half-day sessions (to allow for participant reflection and development).
Created by the Money Advice Trust’s Chris Fitch, Colin Trend, and Ian Phillips, the Academy is built around case-studies and presentations from leading practitioners and firms across (and beyond) financial services, supported by facilitated examination and analysis of approaches already being taken in practice.
The Academy also draws on a blend of exclusive video, audio, podcast, and course-work review for participants, with the aim of helping participants embed vulnerability throughout the culture, policies, and relevant customer journeys of their organisation.
The latest Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers makes it clear that vulnerability remains at the very top of the FCA’s agenda. The FCA’s analysis estimates that the number of customers displaying vulnerability characteristics has increased by 1.5 million since March 2019. With cases of financial vulnerability continuing to increase as a result of the economic downturn, our Vulnerability Academy will ensure firms are prepared to meet the challenges posed to customers and colleagues.
Download the Vulnerability Academy Brochure (PDF)
Watch Chris Fitch, Academy lead discuss the value of the Academy:
Chris Fitch - Vulnerability Lead, Money Advice Trust on the Vulnerability Academy.
Background
Many firms recognise the need to improve their knowledge, policies and practical responses to the challenges their colleagues face in identifying and supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances. However, in a political and regulatory environment where ‘vulnerability’ remains a fluid concept, and where firm conduct, resources and commercial pressures are under scrutiny, firms need to plan and prioritise.
An effective response
Policy and organisational ambitions on vulnerability cannot be met unless three conditions are fulfilled:
This means that an effective response to vulnerability must also be led by and make parallel improvements to the strategic, policy, governance and information environments that these colleagues will be working in.
Booking:
We are aware that for many firms the option to book/pay to attend our activities at the moment is severely restricted. In response to member requests we have added an option for you to register your interest. Please press the Book Now button below and follow the instructions to register your interest and we'll be back in touch in a few weeks to discuss your interest. If you have any questions, please email the team: training@ukfinance.org.uk or call the team on +44 20 3934 1197.
How can the Academy help?
At its core the Academy is a learning environment where senior managers will have the opportunity to meet, question, and work with leading thinkers across sectors. They will follow a programme that includes five one-day workshops, supplemented by webinars (using voice, graphics and interactive features to engage learners and reinforce the key workshop messages), podcasts (a deep-dive understanding of the issues via interviews with experts, guests and practitioners), plus elearning, reading lists and downloadable resources.
Vulnerability resources:
Take this training in-house
If you have five or more delegates who wish to attend this workshop, it may be more cost effective to run it in-company. To find out more about in-company training, please contact the team on 0203 934 1197 or training@ukfinance.org.uk.
The Money Advice Trust is a charity helping people across the UK to tackle their debts and manage their money with confidence. The Trust runs National Debtline and Business Debtline, and also provides training and consultancy to creditors across sectors on identifying and supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances.
COVID-19 GUIDANCE: Each workshop will be delivered online in two half-day sessions. We will revert back to face-to-face workshops as the situation eases.
Agenda
Participants will be invited to attend five workshops over the course of five months.
Download the Vulnerability Academy Brochure (PDF)
The Learning Experience
These workshops are supplemented by interactive webinars, podcasts, plus e-learning, reading lists and downloadable resources.
Participant development
The Academy will require participants to build a personal ‘gap analysis’/critical appraisal of their organisation’s approach to vulnerability.
The aim of this ‘gap analysis’ portfolio is to allow participants to reflect on the specific challenges (and solutions) that they perceive in terms of addressing vulnerability within their own work, while being able to share more general challenges and issues that every single firm will encounter at some point.
Sharing best practice
Participation in the Academy requires participants who are willing to be challenged by the material, but who will also challenge our speakers and one another as well. The aim throughout is to open and change both participants’ minds and practice.
Vulnerability Lead Consultant, Money Advice Trust
Chris has led a programme of award-winning research and intervention work on financial services, financial difficulty and vulnerability since 2006.
He is Vulnerability Lead at the Money Advice Trust and a Research Fellow at the Personal Finance Research Centre, University of Bristol. Previously he was Head of Policy and Research Fellow at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
The programme that Chris leads aims to result in outputs which are ‘short on the obvious, and long on the practical’ – and with colleagues, he has written practical guidance for firms and staff on both effectively working with customers who are in vulnerable situations, and also looking after their own wellbeing and working environment following such contact.
In 2017, Chris was named in Credit Strategy’s Top 50 influencers in the creditor sector, and in 2015 he received the Martin Williams award for contribution to the UK credit industry (awarded each year by Credit Today) for the programme’s work on mental health, vulnerability, and financial services.
Lead Trainer, Money Advice Trust
Colin Trend has a wealth of experience in the finance and debt sectors; from roles with private, public and voluntary organisations. He has tutored with the Money Advice Trust since 2007 and works directly with a variety of creditor firms.
Colin is the lead tutor with the Money Advice Trust on their vulnerability programme, assisting both in the UK and overseas. With Chris Fitch, he co-authored the Trust’s vulnerability guidance for advice agencies, launched by the charity with the backing of a range of organisations across the advice sector in June 2016.
Vulnerability Expert, Money Advice Trust
Ian brings expertise amassed over more than 20 years in the Financial Services industry. Unlike many of his peers, his experience has not only been built up in Head Office roles, but Ian has practical, day to day experience of dealing with the needs of all types of customer in various scenarios as customer account manager, branch manager, mortgage adviser and financial planning manager.
The ability to take this first-hand experience and apply it to the “bigger picture” saw Ian spend the last 12 years in a number of leadership roles at Lloyds Banking Group. He spent the first four years engaged in product and proposition design and management for the Scottish Widows brand, before taking on the challenge of engaging directly with Regulators over a large scale conduct enforcement action and designing and embedding a wholesale overhaul of outcome testing that has gone to become the long term approach for the UK’s biggest banking group, across all products and services, as well as being replicated by a number of competitor firms.
Most recently, Ian led a team providing independent advice and challenge to the front line business, designed to interpret Regulatory policy, principles and future expectation and support the Group in addressing risks before they crystallised for customers. Part of this remit saw him lead on overseeing design and embedding of the Group’s Customer Vulnerability strategy, across all areas of the business and encompassing, amongst other things; product and process design, customer treatments, policy, training, governance and monitoring and evaluation.
During his time leading on Vulnerability, Ian graduated from the first cohort of the UK Finance Academy, so has first hand experience of the benefit delegates can derive from the programme. Part of the ethos of the academy is to see previous delegates return in a contributory capacity and in line with that, together with feedback from facilitators and peers alike on his contribution, Ian was asked to return as co-lead from the start of Cohort Three.
At the same time, Ian has left the Head Office world at LBG and returned to what he loves best - meeting customer needs as Director of his own Commercial Finance brokerage
The recommended participants should be colleagues responsible for development of their organisations strategy for supporting vulnerable customers, these include:
Who should attend:
• Business Leaders (Senior Managers and Desk heads)
• Risk and Control decision makers
• Human Resource and Learning and Development professionals
• Managers responsible or working in contact centres
• Specialist vulnerability colleagues
Audience:
• mortgage lenders
• card issuers
• banks
• credit unions
• payment providers
• any lending firm that is FCA regulated