Vulnerability and Consumer Duty Academy – Spring 2025

Academy overview:

Protecting consumers in vulnerable situations is a priority for firms and regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), as well as being central to wider legal frameworks.

In our thirteenth cohort of the award-winning Vulnerability and Consumer Duty Academy, we will be bringing this to life across twelve sessions, including an induction, a graduation, and ten interactive, practical, and problem-solving online workshops.

Created by the Money Advice Trust’s Chris Fitch, Colin Trend, and Zoe Medlock, the Academy is built around case studies and presentations from leading practitioners, lived experts, and firms across financial services (and beyond) and is supported by facilitated analysis of approaches already being taken in practice.

The Academy includes a coursework review for participants with the aim of helping participants embed vulnerability throughout the culture, policies, and relevant customer journeys of their organisations.

The content is always evolving to keep it relevant to what is happening in the industry right now. Within this academy, we will include sessions on financial vulnerability, cost of living, financial wellbeing, economic abuse, disability, addiction, and other areas. We also have specialist sessions on the use of AI within financial services and digital channel servicing and vulnerability.

Vulnerability remains a top priority for the FCA. The regulator is currently reviewing the industry’s progress in the implementation of its guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers and the Consumer Duty. 2024 also saw the launch of the new ISO Standard on the design and delivery of inclusive services (ISO 22458). The Vulnerability Academy is an extensive training programme that gives participants the knowledge and insight to meet the key requirements of the regulator as well as the new ISO Standard. Giving participants the understanding required to translate the FCA’s expectations into reality.

Learning outcomes

The overarching goal of the Vulnerability Academy is to help firms

• Meet their legal and regulatory responsibilities.

• Embed vulnerability across their organisation, from product and service design, lending and onboarding, customer service, data recording and analytics, collections, fraud, and across all channels.

• Improve their reputation as a responsible organisation that treats customers fairly.

• Develop their own approach and focused plan to improve their own work on vulnerability.

• Expose customers to an exclusive blend of leading practitioner case studies and coursework review.

The Vulnerability Academy is also available as an in-house programme, which means you can tailor it to exactly what you and your colleagues require. Pricing for in-house will depend on what is required. Enquire about this option by contacting our training team.